NO CLINT, IT DIDN’T MAKE MY DAY . . .
CLINT EASTWOOD has given us something remarkable here, namely the impression that after an illustrious directing career stretching back almost 50 years he has forgotten the rudiments of film-making.
The 15:17 To Paris is disastrously undermined by Eastwood’s ‘Big Idea’: to cast, as the three back-packing Americans who overcame a guntoting jihadist on a train from Amsterdam to Paris three years ago . . . themselves.
In truth, the trio — Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler — are not as hopelessly wooden as they might have been.
But even so, the novelty of them reprising their own adventure for the camera quickly subsides. And allowing them to improvise much of the dialogue compounds the mistake.
Their trip around Europe, prior to the eventful train journey, makes the film look like a promising entrant in a Most Banal Travel Documentary competition. ‘Hey, let’s get ready for that excursion,’ might be the least exciting line ever uttered in the movies, were it not for ‘wow, this view’s amazing’.
Only a psychic, or possibly a cinema audience increasingly failing to stifle giggles, could possibly guess that all this will end with them being awarded the Legion d’Honneur in a special ceremony at the Elysee Palace.
To pep things up, Eastwood keeps flashing forward to the train incident, but gradually the suspicion gathers momentum that far from celebrating an act of considerable courage, his horribly-misconceived movie will end up devaluing it.
By now we’ve also been whisked back to Sacramento in 2005 to see how the devoutly Christian trio (represented in this part young actors) became friends. In that sacred American way, incidentally, their Christianity is not incompatible with an obsession with firearms.
At 13, Spencer has an arsenal that could defend the Alamo. He and Alek wind up joining the military. The narrative throbs with Eastwood’s conviction — shared, as we know, by President Trump — that the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Better still, a good guy with a gun and a bible.
As they tick off all those European cities on the countdown to the 15:17, Spencer keeps saying he feels he was put on earth for a higher purpose.
My own rather lower purpose is to dissuade you from seeing the worst film that Eastwood has ever made.