From Paris With Love C+

John Travolta has left so many cinematic stink bombs in theaters for unsuspecting audiences in recent years that his name on the marque doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
So when I saw what looked from the trailers like a pretty generic looking action film staring Travota sporting his fu man chu badass goatee and a shaved head I did not have high hopes. The best I can say about From Paris With Love is that Travolta is actually the best part of the movie. It's a sublimely ridiculous film, and Travolta seems to understand this because he's clearly having a ball and getting both intentional and unintentional laughs in the process.

Travolta stars as Charlie Wax, another in a long line of secret agents who play by their own set of rules. Travolta seems to be about 20 to 30 pounds too heavy for the role, but the film asks him to dispatch half a dozen Asian thugs on the streets of Paris in hand to hand combat without breaking a sweat. I haven't seen a hero quite this indestructible since Bruce Willis in "Live Free Or Die Hard." And Travolta shares the same self aware smirk through the whole proceedings. I particularly liked one scene that has him chasing someone over the rooftops of Paris, rolling down inclines and jumping 50 foot gorges with the greatest of ease while looking like he could barely get up a flight of stairs without wheezing.

Travolta is paired with Reiss (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) an assistant in the U.S. Embassy trying to break into the spy game. Meyers, sporting a dodgy American accent, is there mostly to play straight man to Travolta's clowning while on the trail of drug dealers and terrorists.

But unfortunately the rest of the movie can't quite match Travolta's zany intensity. The action scenes are pretty generic, the shaky cam cinematography is a little old hat by now, and the filmmakers never really stage any great ludicrous set pieces other than a freeway chase involving a car bomb and Travolta trying to shoot it with a bazooka from a moving car. The time went by faster than I thought it would during its trim 90 minute running time. It's worth watching at 2am on HBO but it not quite special enough to spend actual money on.

From Paris With Love: C+