Action film at least has Travolta

There’s nothing much special about director Pierre Morel’s latest action flick, “From Paris With Love,” except for the pleasure of seeing John Travolta playing yet another loosey-goosey undercover tough guy racking up a body count.

On the other hand, Morel has the good sense to keep this thing moving at a rapid-fire pace — in more ways than one — and brings it in right at 90 minutes. Not a bad diversion for a gray, snowy weekend if you don’t mind lots of cussing and a whole lot of choreographed firefights in which the white guys kill the immigrants.

Morel is the French director behind such recent action hits as last year’s “Taken,” starring Liam Neeson, and the subtitled “District 13.” Both also share a screenwriting/story credit with Luc Besson. This movie’s not as good as those.

Why? Because everything about it feels so familiar, starting with the pairing of the uptight bureaucrat who longs to be a spy with the loose cannon who shows him the ropes while keeping him from getting killed, over and over.

Travolta, of course, is the loose cannon, Charlie Wax, sent to derail a terrorist plot in Paris. Jonathan Rhys Meyers (“Match Point,” “Bend It Like Beckham”) is James Reece, a personal aide to the French ambassador, longing to be a special ops agent. He’s been doing little secret errands like planting a bug in a hard-to-reach office, but his big break comes when he’s assigned to assist Charlie and gets in over his head immediately.

Reece’s job affords him a trendy Paris apartment and a gorgeous, lusty French girlfriend, Caroline (Kasia Smutniak), but spying turns out to be inconvenient, maybe even incompatible, with romantic bliss.

“I woke up with my share of Carolines,” Charlie sneers.

“She’s no ordinary girl,” Reece replies.

“They never are,” says Charlie.

The dialogue is mostly pedestrian like that, with the occasional witty crack thrown in.

But Travolta looks like he’s having fun, with his shaved head, goatee and hoop earring, cussing up a storm and playing to all our worst xenophobic instincts by using terms like raghead and reminding the French that the United States saved their — ahem — derrières in two world wars.

He even reveals that his favorite French food is — wait for it — a Royale With Cheese, aka Big Mac. That just happened to be the favorite food of another Travolta character, Vincent in “Pulp Fiction.” Ha ha. Might not want to use that joke if your current movie suffers by comparison, as this one certainly does.

But it has its moments as Travolta mows through nine Chinese in a restaurant shootout, six Asian street toughs with his bare hands in a back alley, half a dozen guards on a circular stair, 11 more Asians in a mannequin factory and so on.

Brace yourself for some shaky-camera, fast-editing scenes that are nausea-inducing for some viewers. They actually serve a purpose here — to mask the fact that Travolta can’t move and do stunts the way a younger man might.

Contact the writer:

444-1269, bob.fischbach@owh.com

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