John Travolta’s Extremely Graphic, R-Rated Action Thriller Is His Best Since Pulp Fiction

By Robert Scucci
| Published 9 seconds ago

John Travolta is an interesting specimen because, like Nicolas Cage, he goes all in on his roles, for better or worse. Battlefield Earth is an absolute punisher, along with Perfect, Gotti, Old Dogs, and Wild Hogs. Don’t even get me started on The Fanatic because I don’t have three days. When he’s in his element, though, he never ceases to amaze me. His performances in Pulp Fiction and Face/Off are legendary, and 2010’s From Paris with Love deserves to be celebrated with the same level of reverence as his known classics.

From Paris with Love’s 37 percent critical score on Rotten Tomatoes might make you think otherwise, but I think the critics missed the point on this one. The movie borders on parody, and Travolta fires on all cylinders as an action hero who falls somewhere between John Wick and Sterling Archer. He’s disproportionately confident, says everything with a wink and a nod, and pumps every scene full of lead before even sizing up the room.

Or so you think. As the second and third acts unfold, it becomes obvious that his Charlie Wax character is always multiple steps ahead of his adversaries, and every move he makes plays like a game of 4D chess. He just prefers to act on instinct before letting everybody else catch up with him, which leads to some genuinely hilarious moments that only a straight-faced, bald, goateed John Travolta could pull off.

This Movie Is Absolutely Ridiculous

I didn’t know what I was getting into when I fired up From Paris with Love on Prime Video. If I’m being honest, I was expecting a late-career flop with some poorly executed one-liners and your usual gratuitous yet poorly done explosive setpieces. Instead, what we get plays more like a comedy of errors when our hero James Reese (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is tasked with tagging along on a trip to Paris with Charlie Wax, a high-level NOC field agent who follows nobody’s rules but his own. The kind who shoots first and asks questions later, but always knows how to improvise his way out of a jam, even if he’s got 100 guns pointed at him.

Charlie is working a case involving a Triad drug ring, its connections to Pakistani terrorists, and plans to attack the U.S. Embassy. Meanwhile, James has cold feet because taking the mission means time away from his girlfriend Caroline (Kasia Smutniak), which could strain their relationship. All caution is thrown to the wind once the stakes are made clear, and from that point on, it’s total insanity.

John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys Meyers run around with a vase full of cocaine in From Paris with Love. They casually eat Royales with Cheese after causing an unthinkable amount of collateral damage wherever they go. They get crossed by sleeper agents, but it’s fine because Charlie Wax knows how to fire a bazooka out of a moving car. They’re on official business and seem to have infinite clearance, so they raid whatever building they feel like, never hesitating to kill every person in their path. The whole time, John Travolta is either smirking or completely deadpan, and running straight into danger like a total badass because he’s a man on a mission. Oh yeah, and James Reese is first summoned to work with Charlie Wax because he’s held up at customs, passionately arguing about the energy drinks he absolutely needs to bring into Paris.

A Successfully Stupid Action Thriller

I can see why people would be disappointed by From Paris with Love if they were expecting a typical, straight-up action thriller. In many ways, it still hits those beats. What sets it apart is its subtle humor and its ability to take those expectations and flip them. This movie, as far as I can tell, is meant to be fun, ridiculous, over-the-top, and completely unhinged. The action sequences are well choreographed, and the odd-couple chemistry between Travolta and Meyers sells it all.

If anything, that’s probably what rubbed critics the wrong way. It has all the ultra-violent John Wick trappings before John Wick was even a thing, but has no right being as funny as it is. If you can realign your expectations before going into From Paris with Love, you’re going to have a great time with it. It’s an absolute treat if you try to enjoy it for what it’s actually trying to accomplish.

As of this writing, From Paris with Love is streaming on Prime Video.