With a nod in more than title to James Bond's From Russia With Love, From Paris With Love serves as a non-stop rollercoaster of action violence for the crazed superagent Charlie Wax(John Travolta) and his wannabe trainee diplomat James Reese (John Rhys-Meyers). Wax may or may not be on assignment for the Secretary of State (whose niece ended up overdosing on some bad cocaine), sending the new partners on an outward style of madness and mayhem, or he may be after a series of terrorist-related activities which also send the unlikely partners into an ever-growing tidal wave of madness and mayhem.

Brought to your eyes by Luc Besson, the man behind The Transporter series, District B13, Kiss Of The Dragon, Tell No One, and Taken, the movie sets you up with the normal, everyday life of Reese the diplomat before exploding into fury at the arrival of Wax in Paris. Given that Besson has worked with Jason Statham, Jet Li, and Liam Neeson, taking their natural talents and turning them into serious martial arts action stars (or at least take-no-prisoners vigilantes), you figure he'll do okay with the guy who gave Swordfish, The Taking of Pelham 123, and Face/Off their brutal, violent look. But something about the Reese/Wax pairing makes this one seem more like a spoof than a completely hardboiled action thriller; this one ends up being more like True Lies, because there's the deadly serious side, and then the "are you kidding me, they're not serious... are they?" side.

Travolta's Wax is the kind of guy who conjugates various offensive profanity to deflect attention away from what is going on, who names his favorite gun Mrs. Jones, and who thinks that carrying a few kilos of cocaine in a vase is worth the high (pun intended). He's the funny man in a pair of oddly-paired partners to Reese's buttoned-up, naive office-runner. Reese wants to be in Wax's world; no, he really wants to be in the world he thinks Wax inhabits. There are plenty of concentric circles rippling out from this, like violence is never as cool as you might think it is on television when the bullets are flying by your head, that power and authority don't prevent you from getting killed, and that there are plenty of jobs that aren't nearly as glamorous when you actually get involved in the dirty work. From Paris With Love is a jab at those who watched Taken and thought "aw, yeah!" but couldn't see the pain and suffering of the real situation that Liam Neeson's Bryan Mills goes bulldozing through.

Reese is pretty pathetic when we meet him. His life is spent getting coffee, making appointments, and running errands for the ambassador to Paris, while sliding in "extracurricular" activities for a voice who calls him periodically with spy duties to run (usually just changing the license plates on the cars of real operatives). At home, he's portrayed as even more neutered; his lover is willing to take risks, express herself, etc. and even goes so far as to propose to Reese with her father's ring. Reese wants all of this dangerous lifestyle and glamor he perceives from being a spy, but he can't even be bold enough to truly express his feelings.

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