French writer/director Luc Besson ("Transporter" and "Taken") has written another slam-bang actioner that hits all its marks:
- It has plenty of gunfire, profanity, vehicular mayhem and blowie uppie stuff (no Computer Generated Imaging).
- It has John Travolta ("The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3") as an ultra-violent CIA operative who comes to Paris to clean up a terrorist cell; he is fast, funny and foul mouthed.
- It has Jonathan Rhys Meyers ("The Tudors") playing an administrative aide at the American embassy, sort of a Casper Milquetoast who schleps a valuable Oriental vase (full of cocaine!) through half of the movie, as he jumps in and out of vehicles, runs up and down stairs while dodging corpses and bullets. (For an Irishman, he speaks "American" quite well.)
- It gives us a CIA to be proud of, staffed with competent agents, clever administrative aides and skillful drivers.
- It has a shoot-em-up plot that doesn't insult us, boasts easily discernable dialogue and is entertaining from beginning to end.
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