adminDirector: Pierre Cahan
Cinema: Rainbow town
Running time: 89 minutes
Type of film: European spies
Age restriction: 16
Prof Joel White
If, before I die, I have the opportunity to interview one Hollywood actor, let it be John Travolta.
Initiating a magnificent career in 1976 with the classic “Carrie” he has honoured and uplifted the cinema as an art form with more than 50 films to his credit.
But now, reaching way down into the shallows, he has blotted his copybook with a film that is painful to watch.
Albeit made in Paris, I cant imagine how they got away with it, they have portrayed the French as barely human.
Snarling, fog-brained, bestial: with Travolta’s role the worst of all.
The time is the present; we are in Paris.
The film is seen from the point of view of the American Embassy and its ambassador. His personal aide, Charles, the actor Rhys Meyers, in his first leading role, at age 34, has become enamoured of a woman whose origin and intentions he has foolishly failed to investigate.
The film is a battle of wits and guns, on French soil, between the Americans and a pot-pourri of Muslims.
Over and over, the Americans, largely in the person of Travolta in the role of Charles Wax and unbelievably out-gunned, invade the premises of Muslim gangsters, who, despite operating openly on the street and elsewhere, have failed to draw the attention of the Paris sûreté, who, as every film goer knows, are the most successful police force in the world.
To its credit, the film displays to the viewer who is unable to travel, Paris in all its worthy glory.
To get to see the sights of Paris for the price of a seat in a Harare cinema is clearly a very worthy objective.
But, as a film which seeks credibility, I would happily sit down with Travolta and question the wisdom of his appearing in it.
Does he need the money.
Online Reporter