“The 15:17 to Paris” and the critics

We talked about the latest Clint Eastwood film, “The 15:17 to Paris” last year. It’s about the three Americans, Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler, who thwarted a lone-wolf terrorist attack on a train from Brussels to Paris. The trio star as themselves in the movie which spends an inordinate amount of time telling the story of the men before their heroic efforts on the train, according to critics, reports AFP;

“We thought the projectionist had put on the wrong film for the first quarter of an hour,” said the Parisien newspaper, which bemoaned how the veteran director took an hour and 15 minutes to recount the friends’ “tedious” childhoods as devout Catholics in California.

Only in the final “incredible, hyper-tense 10 minutes” does “The 15:17 to Paris” take off, said critic Renaud Baronian when Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler overpower a Moroccan jihadist armed with an AK-47 on the Paris-bound train from Amsterdam carrying more than 500 passengers.

Others were slightly less damning, with one critic lamenting that “an incredible story does not make a good film” and that “the movie gets stuck in the station,” while Culturebox said with biting irony that “it was not going to revolutionise cinema.”

The Figaro newspaper, however, praised it, although it admitted it “does not play the suspense card”.

Yeah, well, the actual terror attack only lasted minutes, so what could Eastwood use to fill a 90 minute film other than tell the story of three Americans who saved the lives of hundreds of Europeans on a spur of the moment decision, out of a sense of duty to humanity?

From Roger Friedman, a more charitable review;

You know, I’m Jewish and liberal, so “patriotic” and “Christian” aren’t two of the things I warm to in movies necessarily. But Eastwood’s take on these real life heroes is not simplistic. The real life people playing themselves as heroes on the train from Amsterdam to Paris– I was braced for a bad movie. And I will say, it starts slowly and it’s totally not what you expect. Nevertheless, if you’re patient with it, you quickly realize several things.

First of, the real guys are not bad. I’ve seen worse. Compared to Louis CK’s unreleased “I Love You, Daddy,” the acting and writing here is Shakespearean.

Second, Eastwood– as he did in “American Sniper” and “Sully”– lays out their stories and backgrounds objectively. I’m already seeing in some reviews some idea that Eastwood is pushing a religious agenda or whatever. Nonsense. He’s accurately depicting these people. The mothers of the guys are religious– this is what they believe, it’s their right. No one is mocking them or judging them. This is who they are. And kudos to Jenna Fischer and Judy Greer for finding the mothers’ dimensions.

If there’s a problem with “15:17” it’s that it’s almost filmed like cinema verite, certainly as the story unfolds. There’s a lot of exposition and it seems slow. Again, a little patience wouldn’t hurt anyone. Because when the kids’ backstories switch to the main guys, Eastwood finds a groove. Forgive him if the entry seems clunky.

So the French critics don’t like a film about Americans. Big surprise.

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