From Paris With Love

Is there any fire power left in the buddy cop genre? Shooting the breeze, Kimberly Gadette wonders if this latest "gun play" will trigger a brand new round of interest.

The "Wunza Movie" returns. As coined by Roger Ebert in his review of Rush Hour, referring to the oddball pairing of the crime-fighting lead characters: "Wunza legendary detective from Hong Kong, and wunza Los Angeles cop. And wunza martial arts expert and wunza wisecracking showboat." In From Paris with Love, wunza wackadoo bald guy with a personality that's louder than his scarf, and wunza button-down aide to the US Ambassador in France. Wunza a middle-aged pro who's seen it all and done it twice, and wunza young eager-beaver spy wannabe, hoping to someday climb the ranks from his covert side job as a low-level CIA operative to bona fide agent.

When the CIA needs a local man to assist their senior agent/crazy bald dude (John Travolta's Charlie Wax) who's just flown in to Paris to stop a terrorist attack, they assign the aide (Jonathan Rhys Meyers' Reese) to act as translator, chauffeur, et al. He's initially thrilled – but when Wax carries out some substantive shelling of Parisian back alleys, Reese's prior fantasies of the glamorous espionage life, à la James Bond, are literally shot to hell. Worse, when it looks like Reese himself has been targeted, he has no one to turn to other than that crazy CIA cowboy Wax. Oh, and his pretty, supportive French girlfriend Caroline (Kasia Smutniak), is growing less supportive by the hour.

Based on an original story by Luc Besson, the movie is a high-octane action thriller with all the attendant character humor that, as the genre dictates, comes from the very act of forcing disparate people into fighting crime together. But what sets this film apart is a rare intelligence not often found in this genre, from the characters to the cinematography to the twists in the story that tease us into staying alert. Even when we sense something's a bit off, we're deprived of any immediate payoff – which makes the ride all the more fun.

Meyers continues to impress (Match Point, The Tudors), as adept with comedy as he is with drama. When Wax insists that the clueless Reese lug around a hefty Chinese vase containing a goodly amount of cocaine, we see him struggle to look cool – and we also see that he knows just how stupid he looks. As funny as those moments are, when Reese catches sight of his face splattered with a considerable amount of a dead man's blood, he is at once stunned, sickened and conflicted about the very real consequences that come from playing with guns. Without a word, Meyers telegraphs all of it, beautifully, seemingly effortlessly.

Playing his maniacal other half, Travolta looks like he's having one of the best times of his career. He fairly dances with glee as he instigates multitudes of frenetic shoot-'em-up's – and let's face it, no one does the dance of glee quite like Travolta, whether in domestic drag (Hairspray), angel's wings (Michael), or at a '70s disco (Saturday Night Fever), when his moves first caught the world's attention some thirty-three years ago. Per director Pierre Morel, Travolta was encouraged to vary his takes widely: "By taking bits and pieces from one take to the other, in editing we were able to build the character ... is he someone you can trust or not?" Kudos to Morel ... it worked.

Morel also decided that the initial meeting between the actors would occur at the same time that the characters met on camera. Like Wax, it seems that Morel is crazy like a fox. In one fell swoop, he demonstrated both a rare trust and confidence in his actors, all the while capturing a delectable moment of near cinéma vérité.

The director's willingness to play is evident in the cinematography as well. A particularly harrowing shootout is captured via a twitching handheld camera, echoing the audience's jumpy nerves. A sequence displaying a location zooms to the point of view of a satellite in space – presumably just for fun, just to mix it up. The film's pacing is topnotch as well, from the frenetic roof and car chases, detonating bombs and spraying bullets to the slower scenes that create suspense or simply take a pause, allowing the characters (particularly Reese and his girlfriend) the necessary room to consider sobering events that will change their psyches forevermore.

Although the dialogue could have had a bit more spark, it's not a substantive deal breaker in this Parisian pelt-fest. The buddy cop movie over and done with? Not on your life.

Rating on a scale of 5 French twists: 3.5

Release date: US: 5 February 2010; UK: 5 March 2010
Directed by: Pierre Morel
Screenplay by: Adi Hasak
Based on a story by: Luc Besson
Cast: John Travolta, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Kasia Smutniak, Richard Durden
Rating: US = R; UK = 15
Running time: 92 minutes