Though I didn't love J. Edgar and I definitely need to rewatch American Sniper (I rated it 9/10 in the good old days), I usually like Clint Eastwood's movies. The 15:17 Train to Paris is a different story. The trailer didn't look that appealing to me and now that I've seen the movie I know why.
The 15:17 Train to Paris follows the course of the lives of three friends, Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler, from the struggles of childhood through finding their footing in life, to the trip through Europe where they managed to stop a terrorist attack on a train from Amsterdam to Paris on August 21, 2015.
Just in case you didn't realise it, the film is based on a true story. Of course it is, Clint Eastwood made it. And, as you probably guessed, the film doesn't really focus on the attack itself but on the lives of the three young men. That I liked. The problem is that there is not enough material to fill a whole movie --which explains the short running time of the film, an hour and thirty minutes.
It's boring seeing the three friends grow up mainly because there's nothing special about it. Other than their friendship lasting and the fact that two of them joined the military, there's absolutely nothing here. Eastwood doesn't develop any theme and therefore this part is as shallow as it gets. It's not like their reunion and their trip through Europe is any less boring than what came before. It's just as bland as everything else. As for the attack itself, we don't learn anything from this film that we didn't already learn on the news at the time of the attack. So yeah, this film utterly pointless.
The characters are just another flaw. They don't any a lot of depth and there are just too many of them. I mean, there are supporting characters coming out of nowhere all the time, and after a second or two, they are gone. What's the point in that? Also, at some point, the film completely forgets about Skarlatos and Sadler and only focuses on Stone.
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| Warner Bros. Pictures |
Then there's Clint Eastwood's brilliant idea of using the real heroes to play themselves in the movie. While it was an interesting idea and I'm sure it has never been done before, with such a weak script, casting non-actors for leading roles is not a good idea. Not wonders Stone, Skarlatos and Sadler's performances are bland and stale (by the way, I just realised all of their last names begins with 's'). I'm not saying I'd do better than them, but at least I'm not starring in a freaking movie. Among the actors, there are Jenna Fischer (Pam from The Office) and Judy Geer playing Skarlatos and Stone's mothers respectively and they share what's easily one of the most awkward scenes of the year.
As if all that wasn't enough, Clint Eastwood thought it was a good idea to make the film very slow paced. After all, there's no other way to fill an hour and a half with so little. Also, he fails completely to deliver a tense, suspenseful scene on the train. That one is easily one of the most tedious action sequences I've seen.
Ultimately, The 15:17 Train to Paris is a movie that tries too hard to be inspirational and fails. The only good thing in this movie for me was seeing Skarlatos wearing Müller's jersey. I'm sure I wouldn't have felt the way if I wasn't a die-hard Bayern fan.
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