This is shockingly awful. Let me start by saying that I don’t like Clint Eastwood. I fucking love Clint Eastwood. I love him as an actor, I love him as a director. He is one of the most iconic figures in the history of Hollywood and perhaps the most iconic such figure still working. But if The 15:17 to Paris is any indication, it may be time for Clint to hang up his cowboy boots, as much as it pains me to say it.
This is the true story (played by the actual people) of three Americans that thwarted a terrorist attack aboard a train heading from Amsterdam to Paris in 2015. The incident only lasts a matter of minutes. That’s the entire plot of this film.
Nothing happens in this movie. Nothing. Fucking. Happens. Here is the problem with making a 94-minute movie out of a 5-minute event: You need to fill the other 89 minutes with something. So we get to see the three friends grow up. They have to go to the principal’s office several times as kids. That was enthralling. Eventually a couple of them decide to go to the military. We get to watch them train and take exams. Then we get to watch them travel around Europe, go to clubs, hit on girls, get drunk…. it’s fucking thrilling stuff. The film occasionally flashes to the eventual bit on the train. Nothing substantial; just enough to remind us that some frat guys hadn’t hijacked the theater to show home movies of their hiking trip. Eventually they get on that train, take down the terrorist and get a medal. End of film. This was fucking mind-numbing.
Let’s get to the elephant in the room: the performances. One of the biggest marketing points of this movie is that the roles are played by the actual people that lived these events (and I use the word “events” very loosely for 95% of the film). Eastwood had an actual cast all set, but fired them when he had this idea. People often remark that it must be easy for people to play themselves. No, it fucking isn’t. Heroes they may be, but these guys are not actors. Every line is stiff and clearly memorized. Every movement is deliberate and obviously staged. It is goddamn painful to watch. Actors know film language (or at least they should). They know dialogue beats. They know how to infuse the role with character that isn’t necessarily on the written page. I don’t care if these guys lived it, that doesn’t mean that they can effectively pretend to live it. Try asking your friends to reenact what they did yesterday and then tell me how fucking riveting their performance is. This is not only a failure as a filmmaking experiment, it is fucking embarrassing. I was literally embarrassed for these people sitting through this.
I would also love to meet the child that wrote the dialogue for this film. As with the performances, I rarely hear dialogue so cringe-inducingly bad that I put my hand over my eyes and feel bad for the people on the screen. Somebody says the line “My god is stronger than your statistics.” If I was a sixth grade English teacher and a student put that line in a short story, I would smack them. This isn’t a sixth grade short story. It’s a movie directed by Clint fucking Eastwood. I was worried from the trailer when somebody says something to the effect of “you ever get the feeling that life is pushing us toward something big?” (a line that is delivered as subtly as it was written, since the guy isn’t a fucking actor). But naw, I thought. That’s just an isolated thing for the trailer. Surely no professional writer could write such hackneyed, forced bullshit. Fuck was I wrong. That line, in slightly different variations, is repeated several times. It’s like the writer was reading a book titled How to Write Fiction, got to the chapter on foreshadowing and thought “holy fuck, this shit is clever! I am going to do so fucking much of this!” Well, fuck you, imaginary writer guy in my head. You suck. You can’t write. You are an embarrassment to us all as a species and a setback to the development of writing as a skill.
The guys in this movie are actually heroes and deserve the commendations that they have received. Clint Eastwood is a living legend. But as a film, this is unforgiveable, amateurish bullshit. Everybody involved with this film deserved better….except for the writer. Fuck her. Now I’m going to go watch Unforgiven for the 20th time and forget that this exists.
Image By: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_15:17_to_Paris#/media/File:The_15.17_to_Paris.png
