From Paris with Love - Blu-Ray

Film: With the revenge thriller "96 Hours" Pierre Morel has landed a real surprise hit, especially in the US. With the renewed support of Luc Besson Morel sends in his latest work "From Paris with Love" again an American in the capital of love to clean up once really. The result, however, leaves a somewhat stale aftertaste despite high entertainment value.

As assistant to the U.S. ambassador in Paris, up-and-coming agent James Reese (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) hasn't really been assigned the most exciting job. But then he is offered a unique opportunity that could catapult him further up the career ladder: he is to assist the somewhat difficult, but in his own way unbeatable agent Charlie Wax (John Travolta) with his latest assignment. Upon Charlie's arrival, James realizes that this assignment will push him to his limits. And indeed, just moments after arriving in Paris, bullets start flying around Charlie and his new partner's ears. And what was initially intended as a strike against unscrupulous drug traffickers quickly takes on unexpected proportions, affecting James and his personal life more than he would have liked.

No question: if you like fast-paced action and merciless gun battles, you'll get your money's worth here. Morel wastes no time developing deep characters or a logical story. He's only concerned with firing as much ammunition as possible and giving bald John Travolta a platform for perhaps his most over-the-top performance ever. There's a certain entertainment and showmanship value to the whole thing then. There are some moments, especially the numerous car chases, that are really great staged.

However, the lack of an engaging story and the way too thickly applied coolness of Charlie Wax quickly lose their appeal and therefore seem rather tiring than rousing. "96 Hours" wasn't great auteur cinema either, but at least Liam Neeson's character had a comprehensible motivation for his actions. And that's exactly what's missing here and even if there is a reason for the hail of lead, the viewer doesn't care about it at all.

As pure action pleasure for the eye, "From Paris with Love" undoubtedly works quite neatly. Therefore, if you don't care about a story or interesting characters, you'll be well served here. All others should rather do without this Paris trip.

Picture + Sound: The technical implementation of the Blu-Ray is absolutely convincing. The fast-paced action has been transferred especially in the field of sound first-class in the home theater. But also in terms of image quality, the disc can convince with a high degree of sharpness and decent contrasts and has overall few weak points.

Extras: The disc has just under 50 minutes of extras to offer. It starts off with a fairly decent making of (approx. 26 mins), which has a little more to offer than the usual advertising level. Here, among other things, the staging of the action sequences in the film, which have not always been easy to realize.

Continue with some short promotional interviews with the actors and the director (about 14 min), 2 minutes of uncommented B-roll footage, a music clip (about 3:30 min), as well as the German and the English trailer. BD live features and a trailer show from the provider round out the offerings.

Conclusion:"From Paris with Love" may not be the most intelligent action film of the year. However, the work offers good entertainment despite obvious weak points all the time. The Blu-Ray is technically good to very well implemented and has a decent making of, as well as other promotional extras to offer. For action fans definitely recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp