15h17: Trem para Paris

I have the greatest admiration for Clint Eastwood, both as an actor and director. In the directorial role he never fails to astound me with the breadth of topics and genres he is prepared to operate within. Even his failures such as Absolute Power and Jersey Boys still have degrees of interest. But with The 15:17 to Paris, he's clearly hit the wall.

This is essentially a 90 minute re - enactment of events leading up to, during and after, 3 American tourists (thankfully) thwarted a terrorist attack on a Paris bound train from Amsterdam in 2015. In bringing first time screenwriter Dorothy Blyskal's script, to the screen, Eastwood has decided to have the 3 real - life gentleman play themselves in the film adaption. It's a brave move with arguably only qualified success.

For all those history police, that continually charge historical cinematic dramas such as this, with not being factual enough, this time they should have little to complain about. I'm sure with the real life heroes aboard, the project rarely strays from the known facts of the incident, where certainly people's lives were on the line.

The trouble here is there is clearly not enough content to make a stand alone feature. We are thus delivered quite boring, pedestrian stories of the men as children, teenagers and later as adults with military backgrounds. This is not to forget all the "great" travel log footage of the guys wandering through various European cities and shock, horror, going to discoes and meeting the odd girl, prior to the fateful journey on said train. I found it tedious and dull and the movie itself, despite its relatively short length, extremely padded out.

The 15:17 to Paris is a well - intentioned tribute to 3 real life heroes, but it would have been better dealt with in something like a 60 Minutes segment, rather than an expanded feature film. Hard to believe that this is a movie from the same director who gave us (in the same biographical vein) the terrific, American Sniper.

Eastwood is never trivial or corny. This could have been an american flag waving hero film (some people see it that way anyway) but in fact it's about a normal guy that has been treated not so well in life by the authorities but at the end has his day and becomes what he always wanted to be: someone that saves lives. It's about life. Not flags. For example, it's interesting when the guys are corrected by the german tourist operator saying that Hitler was under attack by the Russians and NOT the Americans when he killed himself. You can't always be the hero when evil is defeated. I don't see flag waving here.

If this movie was an experiment, it mainly failed. The movie drags on and on with pointless scenes and zero dramatic build-up. The real life characters-love their bravery and courage to be sure-are not exactly gripping actors. Clint should have left the acting to professional actors. This could have been so much better if the story had focused on the terrorist's path, maybe in parallel with the heroes. Their life story just wasn't remarkable or interesting. The last 5% of the movie was good, but this was a long road to a small house.

Spencer Stone and Alek Skarlatos are childhood best friends. Spencer's mom (Judy Greer) and Alek's mom (Jenna Fischer) are single moms. The kids often get in trouble and the principal of the Christian school blames their upbringing. The friends befriend fellow trouble maker Anthony Sadler. Spencer and Alek would join the military. On their leave, they decide on an European vacation with their lifelong buddy Anthony. They are on the train to Paris where they confront a terrorist.

The basic problem is that director Clint Eastwood is asking too much from these real life heroes. They are not trained actor and they can't hold the screen. I do like the childhood section which obvious does not have the three real people. It also ties into Spencer's heroism a couple of times. In reality, that's all that's needed. It just needs a couple of more scenes that relate to his impulse to act at that moment. Otherwise, the movie needs more of the initial fight without the three Americans. Quite frankly, the first third of the movie could be getting on the train, first noticing the long bathroom break, and then the struggle up to the point when Spencer peers around the seat. Then it can go back to their childhood and cut back on some of their adult lives to save them from their acting limitations. Eastwood's conviction is bigger than his pragmatism. Greengrass would have smoked this.

I have to confess I didn't research this film to any great extent before I sat down to watch it. However, the two things I did know - mainly courtesy of all marketing - was that it was based on the true story of three men who foil a terrorist attack on a train and that it was directed by Clint Eastwood. Both seemed like equally good reasons to watch the film. And - technically - both of those statements are correct. However, I guess because the promotional material seemed to focus so much on the 'terrorist attack' that I expected something more like 'Under Siege 2' or 'The Commuter' than what I got.

The film starts off with the three Americans as young boys and shows us how they meet. First of all I wasn't that impressed with the acting ability of the boys and was quite pleased when this segment ended. Then we get our first glimpse of what's to come, i.e. something bad happening on a busy commuter train in Europe. And then we're back to the boys again. Only now they're young men and we see what they're doing once they've left education. Only we mainly just focus on one of the three. The other two seem to get relegated into secondary characters. Cue another flash-forward to the terrifying events on the train and we get back to the men travelling round Europe. Then the bit on the train happens. Then the film ends.

Now, you may think I'm being quite cynical and scathing towards the film, but I did actually enjoy it. I just thought it was going to be something it wasn't. Once the child-actors are out of the way the adults take over and they're all decent enough heroes who you find yourself able to root for. Clint Eastwood's direction is nothing special, but it's functional approach works well with the subject matter, i.e. overly-stylish camerawork and effects would seem well over the top and out of place in this film.

It's not a bad film, but I think any audience needs to know that what they're sitting down for is some sort of drama about regular guys (who then happen to get caught up in a terrorist attack). If you go in expecting 'Die Hard on a train' then you're going to leave thoroughly disappointed. It's a slow, character-driven piece that is deliberately underwhelming in order to show how real life terrorist attacks differ to the Hollywood representation. If you're in the mood for something slow, serious and with meaning then you should enjoy this.