Clint Eastwood will be 88 in May. This is the director’s 36th film. I mention these facts up front because The 15:17 to Paris makes one thing abundantly clear: It’s not at all clear the filmmaker still knows what he’s doing.
But, Rick, you gave the movie four stars. And I’d have added a question mark if I could. I’m going out on a critical limb in deference to the double Oscar winner’s accomplishments, wagering that this stunningly dull work is stunningly dull by design. That he isn’t in the early stages of dementia but at the peak of his powers, experimenting with radical new approaches to narrative. That Eastwood has gone avant-garde.
At first glance, his latest appears to be in the vein of recent work. American Sniper and Sully celebrate everyday men who rise to extraordinary occasions. The 15:17 to Paris does likewise, recounting the true story of three friends who made headlines on August 21, 2015, by subduing an ISIS-inspired terrorist before he could massacre everyone on board Thalys train 9364.
Ayoub El-Khazzani had zero reason to believe he wouldn’t succeed that day. What chance would passengers trapped inside a speeding steel tube have against an asshole armed with an AK-47, 9mm automatic Luger, box cutter, canister of gasoline, nine loaded magazines and nearly 300 rounds of ammunition? That train had 554 passengers. You do the math.
Here’s where things get all Jean-Luc Godard. Eastwood originally intended to cast actors to play Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler. His choices were announced in the trades last June. Then he decided to go in a different direction.
The filmmaker reconceived the project with the childhood friends playing themselves. He structured it such that 99 percent of the film is devoted to chronicling their Christian upbringing, military training and serial selfie-taking while on European vacation before the fateful train ride.
Make no mistake, all of that — especially the childhood stuff — is excruciatingly boring. First-time screenwriter Dorothy Blyskal displays a flair for transforming the merely banal into the synapse-slaughteringly tedious. As for the nonactors, they elevate not acting to a not-art form. Even the climactic clash, finished in minutes, is anticlimactic. So what’s the deal?
I posit that Eastwood could be attempting something truly revolutionary. In “Dream Song 14,” the poet John Berryman wrote, “Life, friends, is boring.” My theory is that the director made an artistic choice to roll the cameras and let virtually every minute of this movie stand for life by screaming, This isn’t interesting!
Famous for his unfussy style, Eastwood shot even fewer takes this time than usual — just one, in fact, of the picture’s key sequence. The result is a stilted, super-snoozy monument to uneventfulness. The movie’s creators take a pass on character development completely. Ironically, it’s the ultimate anti-action film.
But what Eastwood may be embracing is the uneventfulness of everyday life. Like all art that employs negative space, The 15:17 to Paris is really about what the audience doesn’t see: in this case, the unthinkable horror El-Khazzani would have unleashed if a handful of ordinary people hadn’t done what they did. It’s as if Eastwood is saying, “Look, this may not be terribly dramatic, but neither is life most of the time. On that August day, life got the better of death. Let’s celebrate that with a big fat serving of reality in all its glorious ho-humness.”
Unless I’m wrong. In which case, this is merely the most stunningly dull movie the man has ever made.
The original print version of this article was headlined “The 15:17 to Paris”
This article appears in Feb 14-20, 2018.
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It’s clear that the reviewer prefers the Hollywood wave the flag everything happens with super dramatic score in the background. But in the real world getting shot sucks, sometimes the good guys don’t win and people don’t have theme music. If your eyes just got opened Mr. Eastwood did his job. Welcome to the rest of the world.
It’s very clear that Rick Kisonak does not care for Mr. Eastwood.. That Kisonak believes the Hollyweirdo movies and stars are better. I heard that many many loved the movie and watching the REAL HEROS played themselves. It wasn’t all bells and whistles that Hollyweirdo insists on for their overpaid stars. No one who has seen the movie has said it was BORING!!!, except Kisonak.
I really wonder if the reviewer has any children. From beginning to end that is the context in which this movie captured and kept my attention in its entirety. Especially in today’s world, children from broken homes, friends of mixed ethnicity, and terrorism which has become almost an everyday occurance. The movie to me was about recognizing the positives and love that exist in our society today perhaps giving birth to new grassroots hope and courage…. that’s not dramatic enough?
What a truly disturbing and disgusting review. Seems the hateful reviewer may be looking in a mirror when speaking about dementia.
Sad Review of a Good Movie – “The 15:17 to Paris”
Saw the film last night and while it was not what I was expecting, it traded Hollywood exaggerated action for a dose of the real world. The story was about ordinary people being called to do something extraordinary and that is what Eastwood brought to the screen brilliantly ! Reviewer Rick Kisonak may have been bored with the reality of life, maybe next time he should skip the theater and fire-up his X-Box for an evening of Warcraft III.
To those who have not seen the movie yet, go ! – It isn’t Star Wars but it isn’t a Woody Allen Sleeper either !
BTW – There is a certain charm in a movie that was produced without a thousand “takes” and actually delivers a moral, Christian message.
Mr. Eastwood frankly made more sense when he was onstage talking to a empty chair at the Republican National Convention.
This is another incisive, persuasive, and very witty review. I have come to trust this reviewer more than I do almost anyone else to tell me whether or not a movie is worth seeing.