John Travolta – Action Hero Movies

This is a bit of a fun action movie, starring a 70-year-old John Travolta, with slight vibes of Mission Impossible. Although it gets off to a slow start, and gets a bit nasty in places, and is generally quite a simple movie, and has a long monotonous action scene towards the end; once it gets going it sustains an upbeat vibe and remains mildly captivating pretty much until the end scenes, which is rare for a movie so plain & simple as this one – especially one with a bit of a B-movie vibe about it. It’s actually quite an achievement and earns this movie a rating of slightly Below Average which makes it not much weaker than a lot of classics, which is quite an achievement considering some parts have a slight whiff of B-movie acting & cinematography, which is especially obvious towards the end, but does not make the movie a complete write-off – even the ending is slightly captivating, and the very ending is alright. It’s even tempting to rank this movie Bang Average on a par with many classics, but we have to consider its rewatchability which considering the minimal plot, simple script and intermittently weak acting & cinematography would make it quite hard to rewatch until it’s been pretty much totally forgotten again.

Travolta’s age is telling here – not so much in his face, but in the way he moves like a stiff & fragile stumbling old man.

Purely based on appearance, one of the supporting cast members called Caras, played by a guy who calls himself Swen Temmel, is almost certainly a real life son of John Travolta. Add to this how he looks nothing like his official father, but looks so much like Travolta he’s even been pictured doing impressions of him and the resemblance is striking.

The main woman on the protagonists’ team is a hacker called Link, played by Natali Yura, who is like a pound shop (or dollar store) Scarlett Johannson. Not as smart, classy or attractive but a similar flavour nevertheless.

Demián Castro does a solid job in playing Zade Black – the “target” and brother of the main antagonist. And the main antagonist – a man called Salazar, who has coerced the team of protagonists into helping him – is played quite adequately by Danny Pardo, although he doesn’t make as strong an impression and doesn’t get so much screen time as Castro.

All in all, I’d say this is a Netflix-grade movie, that’s blessed with a single elderly A-List star, and seems to have heavily supplemented its team of old-school industry dogsbodies with green new blood, such that it sits somewhere between Respectably Average and Hard To Watch.

In a way, this movie is consistently quite entertaining. The basic plot concept is very simple but kind of works, although it could easily benefit from another layer of sophistication. In its current state it’s like an episode from a series like NCIS and could have been wrapped up in an hour.

From Paris With Love stars John Travolta as Charlie Wax – an obnoxious, unorthodox hotshot government agent; and Jonathan Rhys Meyers as James Reese – the pen-pushing agent who gets his first job in the field as he’s assigned to working with Wax, which initially seems unbearable but he soon gets used to it and soon learns to appreciate Wax’s mad methods of getting the job done efficiently yet wildly & savagely.

Acting wise, they both do a decent job – quite convincing except for Travolta’s overweight physique (which his heavy coat and fluffy scarf are constantly trying to hide).

Secondary characters include Kasia Smutniak who quite well plays Caroline – Reese’s fiancée who has a dirty little secret; and Richard Durden who satisfactorily plays Ambassador Bennington – Reese’s boss.

Another actor also does pretty good as the near-robotic agent driving Wax around towards the end, but I can’t put a name to his face after checking in Google & IMDB for quite a while. He makes a great semblance of a typical order-following, speak-only-when-spoken-to elite-level national security professional which contrasts nicely with Wax and his renegade methods even though they’re on the same side and working well together.

The fight scenes that begin after 20 minutes in, are shot with unpleasantly jittery camerawork accompanying aggressive noises etc, presumably to mask the lack of real martial arts or athletic ability of John Travolta. He also wears a very chunky coat, scarf and distinctive facial hair presumably to mask his podgy belly and neck – not the most convincing look for a rope-swinging rooftop-jumping special forces hotshot.

Some of the slower drama scenes get rough & radical too, such as when Wax & Reese snort coke from the vase that Wax told Reese to carry around with him.

There’s a blasphemic theme throughout, mainly coming from Travolta’s character, so this movie is not so suitable for young family viewing or when you just want to see & hear things that are pleasant & respectful, especially from the lead protagonists. But if you’re feeling numb or patient enough to be immune to its blasphemy, you may be able to enjoy the fast action and mild humour found throughout this movie.

There’s an awesome plot twist after an hour in, as Wax & Reese discover Reese’s fiancée Caroline may be harbouring a dark secret. Why did it take till the movie was almost over to get really spicy though?

It’s disgusting, but not surprising, to see this movie intentionally convoluting Islamic Dua (invitation to the religion) with terrorist grooming, towards the end. I guess this was the real main motive behind the making of this movie. Typical Hollywood.

Overall, with all things considered, I rate it an OK action movie. Just OK – no more, no less. Just about Average in terms of entertainment value provided, considering all its pros & cons.