By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Clint Eastwood
Cast: Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, Anthony Sadler, Mark Moogalian, Isabelle Risacher, Judy Greer, Jenna Fischer, Ray Corasan, P.J. Byrne, Bryce Gheisar, William Jennings, Paul-Mikel Williams, Thomas Lennon and Jaleel White.
Rating: Poor
Four Time Academy Award Winning Director/Producer Clint Eastwood brings “The 15:17 to Paris”, his 36th film as a director and this was a huge disappointment.
Based on true events, the movie centers in the lives of Air Force Sergeant Spencer Stone, Army National Guard Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Adler.
Both of them form a unique bond a friendship since they were kids. One day the three of them decide to do a backpack trip.
They make the trip and they travel to Paris in a train that departs from Amsterdam. At the beginning everything is fine until a terrorist by the name of Ayoub El-Khazzani (Ray Corasan) begins to open fire against the passengers.
The three of them stop El-Khazzani and perform one of the most heroic acts in recent history. This movie is portrayed by the real heroes who risked their lives to prevent a fatal tragedy.
I remember when I read about “The 15:17 to Paris” that it was going to be directed by Clint Eastwood I was very excited about it.
The problem was when I saw that he was using the real heroes to act in this film I begin to have my doubts and I was not wrong. In a naïve way I always thought that the movie would do fine and that Clint Eastwood still could deliver a good product but this was not the case here.
When you have people who are not actors in a film, the chances of failure a very high and “The 15:17 to Paris” is the perfect example of what I´m talking about.
The screenplay written by Dorothy Blyskal failed in the way that she tried to write the film as loyal to the book written by the real heroes and Jeffrey E. Stern but she failed in the dialogue of the characters and the construction of the scenes.
I felt that this movie had a lot of flashbacks, which I understand they were needed in a film like this but they were not portrayed well.
I believe that if more rewrites in the screenplay would have been involved and if they used real actors to portray the heroes the movie could have gone in a different direction.
This movie had the potential to be a very good film but it failed. This is one of the few movies directed by Clint Eastwood that I didn´t enjoy and despite of the short length of the film it was very slow.
There was a time in the film that I did not care about the characters and I was just looking of three guys in their trip taking selfies and going to night clubs, which happens in the second act of the film.
In the other hand I wonder how this guys really felt when they were asked to portray that event again and the ordeal that represented in their lives.
I still think that they could have coached real actors and tell them the experiences when they were in the train and I think the movie could have been better.
Every time that there is a Clint Eastwood movie I am excited to see it and still am despite this one really disappointed me.
The camera work in the climactic in the film was very well made but that was it. Hopefully in the next Clint Eastwood project he learns from this and I hope he makes a better film, which definitely I´ll be excited to see.
There is no doubt that Clint Eastwood is one of the most important filmmakers of all time and has done memorable movies like “Unforgiven”, “Million Dollar Baby” and many others but at some point he needed to fail and with this one he did.
“The 15:17 to Paris” is one big disappointment, I cannot recommend it and I wish that this movie is a learning experience for Mr. Eastwood.