To Clutter, with Love

I am a natural born clutterer. I have a coffee table in my living room that is my catch-all. I make it a point on Saturday mornings to go through everything that has amassed on my table and then act on it. Sometimes this is paying a bill or throwing out an advertisement or putting coupons in my purse. This past week, buried at the bottom of the pile, was a red envelope from Netflix.

Just like all the rest of you, I’m becoming one of those people that watches almost everything through streaming. I watch Netflix streaming constantly and I even watch most of my television shows through Hulu or casttv.com.

After looking at the label on the DVD and examining the short run time of just over 90 minutes, I put the DVD in my BluRay player and watched the numerous outdated trailers before the main feature. The film was “From Paris with Love”, and I’m very glad that I popped it in. It’s packed full of action, sharp dialogue, nice performances and more than a few laughs – all of which I enjoyed whole heartedly.

The film pairs Jonathan Rhys Meyers and John Travolta teaming up for an espionage-filled buddy flick. Travolta basically channels his “Pulp Fiction” comeback performance, complete with the language and the over-the-top-violence, and an obvious reference. Meyers more than holds his own – taking what could have been essentially the straight man role and adding more depth and dimension to it. It’s nice to see him as something other than King Henry and it’s nice to see him clothed.

The filmmakers know their craft. The story comes from Luc Besson, who wrote “The Professional”. That means he knows how to draft a story. And as bad as his “Transporter” movies are, you can’t deny that they’re full of preposterous action that you simply can’t help but watch (if you actually are forced to watch them). The director, Pierre Morel, also did “Taken” which means that he knows how to consolidate a story and tell it convincingly (although I thought this film was a step up from that one).

Even the plot is a little better than expected. There are some significant twists and turns, and this isn’t the typical spy movie where you can tell what’s coming 20 minutes before seeing it onscreen. Even the run time helps – anything longer would have been too much. There’s just enough time to tell the story, show the scenery, shoot MANY people, and blow a bunch of stuff up.

It might not be highbrow entertainment, but sometimes you just want to get out of
your head for a bit. It’s refreshing to see that an action film can actually have some thought into it. Now I’ll send it back, and goodness knows what’ll come in that next red envelope. Because in addition to being a clutterer, I’m REALLY bad at organizing my Netflix queue.