Paris Has Fallen

The British Embassy in Paris is holding a party. Jacob Pearce (Sean Harris) leads a well armed group to infiltrate the gather. Zara Taylor (Ritu Arya) is a MI6 operative. Vincent Taleb (Tewfik Jallab) is protecting the French Minister of Defense. Pearce led a Foreign Legion group in Afghanistan which was captured by the Taliban. He wants revenge for an unspecified conspiracy.

The "Has Fallen" franchise is not to be taken seriously. It is a franchise based on mindless action fun. Somebody is attacked. Something has fallen. It's not a hard concept or a home to smart writing. At least, this show is staying in that general area. It's not smartly written and there is action. It does abandon the concept of a short time period in the movies. The problem starts with the pile of cash. It is straight up Joker. It is non-realistic. That's the moment when I realized what this show is and what's its limitation. It's not to be taken seriously and it works to gin up tension whether it's deserved or not.

First of all, I am a big Sean harris fan.. He first caught my attention in the Borgia's HBO series some years back. He has a very particular style when he plays so-called bad Guys. It has been great watching his career advance. He is very sinister as the bad guy in this film, and adds his own credible spin and style on his villan The rest of the cast is sterling as well. The film suffers from some credibility issues in the relationships of the two main officers pursuing Harris' charecter. The rifles used in very long range shooting could never make those long shots...in a film with a lot of authentic details. The villan has killed a lot of government people who he believes were responsible for his lover and her two children. It is diabolical, even plausible up to a point. But the direction and script fall off rather sharply at the end. The end is out of sync with the rest of the film, weak. There is also a huge unresolved issue of the corporation CEO who funded behind the scenes the entire plot and who made a fortune from it, he is just left dangling and forgotten at the end. They could at least had a 30 second scene at the end where is being handcuffed. The film opens very strong and builds a suspense that keeps moving, but is very weak at the end. Good work by Sean Harris and look forward to seeing what he does next.

I found this show entertaining-ish, the story is nothing new, even if action scenes are well produced. However, why on earth are all the dialogs in English... all the Paris cops and secret service speaking fluent English: on what planet do you live? And whenever they speak in French, it sounds quite off. I suspect the dialogs were first written in English then translated. As French viewer, this typical Hollywood (althouth its a British/French production) lack of realism ruined it for me.

The actor who plays the bad guy is really good, however I cant say the same about a good chunk of the cast.

...then the creator Howard Overman wants to write and produce his show and all goes downhill from there.

Dialogues are predictably awful

Scenes in Paris were made like the city has no cops no tourists no body living there...just like every time they start shooting nobody notice or what?

They send the two main characters to fight a full well-trained army of terrorists pretty much by themselves...

They're so many holes in this plot that the original idea - that is pretty good - becomes irrelevant to all the amateurish production..

On the only good side...some good fight that makes it OK to call it an action series.

That is probably the only season you'll get

BTW the same creator had another great idea (War of the Worlds remake) but it all went downhill the same way...this guy should really hire someone else to write the stories.

4.5/10.

Most interesting to me is how easily people are convinced that the person exacting revenge is the terrorist... he WAS the terrorist when he was 'on assignment' in someone else's country where he didn't belong...but then he's betrayed by his own country...(this is revealed right in the beginning so i'm not considering it a 'spoiler'). GROSSly betrayed...so then he seeks vengeance for that betrayal and is labeled a terrorist and everyone picks up on that, including the featured reviewer...how typical...and i've seen this time and time again... America invades country after country and some of them come seeking revenge and are labeled 'terrorists'. On top of which, of course, they send their OWN young to these foreign countries not caring what happens to them(SO proven true by what kind of care/support they get when, no IF they get back to their own country...so nobles and serfs, still...and legitimized through terms like 'patriotism'...'keeping the world safe for democracy'. When all they're REALly doing is making certain people and industries wealthier... i think the strength in characterization of the lead three characters is what carries the show and is worthy of the rating i gave it...AND...what Vincent does in the last episode, imo, further speaks to how he saw himself and what i said above...originally i gave it a 6, but just am coming back to add this and raise it to a 7...the show is typical. Generic. Predictable, with some interesting characters and the expected action sequences...one thing i will say in its favor is it, like so many other shows will do, never felt like it was spinning its wheels/stretching so that it could last over the 8 episodes.