Directed by Clint Eastwood
Starring – Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos, Spencer Stone
The Plot – In the early evening of August 21, 2015, the world watched in stunned silence as the media reported a thwarted terrorist attack on Thalys train #9364 bound for Paris, an attempt prevented by three courageous young Americans traveling through Europe. The film follows the course of the friends’ lives, from the struggles of childhood through finding their footing in life, to the series of unlikely events leading up to the attack. Throughout the harrowing ordeal, their friendship never wavers, making it their greatest weapon and allowing them to save the lives of the more than 500 passengers on board.
Rated PG-13 for bloody images, violence, some suggestive material, drug references and adult language
THE POSITIVES
– As an experimental director, Clint Eastwood continues to wet his palate with an unorthodox approach to depicting this story. Because of the invasive nature of the angles and approaches to character shadowing, the film feels very much like a documentary that is taking place in real time.
– There was a point in this film where I feared that it would strike at the hot coals of the religious conversation, but thankfully one of the few things that screenwriter Dorothy Blyskal does with confidence is to taste enough of a poignant approach without souring the taste of an audience who came for a particular genre of film.
– It rarely settles for the conventional approach to real life biopics, and whether you like or dislike the film, you must give it respect for instilling some different takes to an overcrowded subgenre.
THE NEGATIVES
– In one word: Scatterbrained. This screenplay is a mess, undermining the terrifying day to the final twenty minutes of the film. Considering the entirety of the trailer is in the train, it’s a major disappointment to see that it means so little to the finished product. In addition to this, there is an attempt to tell the backstory of these three lifelong friends since childhood, but it does so without ever capitalizing on what grows them into a brotherhood.
– There was easily enough material here to push this to the two hour mark, but Eastwood’s newest is a vicious victim of the hack-and-slash by studios without enough confidence in the audience paying to see it.
– I can appreciate the decision to cast the actual three men in the roles here, but it fails for two big reasons. The first, their acting is bad even for amateur standards, speeding through dialogue reads with too much monotone and not enough passion. The second, this is a major spoiler to someone like me who never heard of the events on the train before this film. If the real life figures are alive, then I know they make it out of the train alright.
– Jenna Fischer and Judy Greer play two of the moms to the trio of men, and it’s interesting to note that they don’t age even remotely in the 15-20 years that has passed in this timeline focus.
– Unconventional is one thing, but to not even have a remote outline of a three act structure shows how off of the beaten path this film really was. More than anything, this feels like a collection of scenes while the crew was on vacation. I say that because so little that is introduced ever actually leads to something of substance in the bigger picture.
– This film totally drops the ball on dramatic tension, speeding through brief scenes of conflict with a grave feeling of impatience that does it little favors in pulling the audience into the environment. I’ve been bored before in a film, but I didn’t even have a heartbeat for this sluggish deficit of attention.
– Eastwood’s directing stamp is noticeably missing, particularly in the final fifteen minutes that show too much and don’t tell enough to communicate with the audience. Many of these scenes feel void of an edit button, leaving the camera on for far too long to eat away at the scenery that is fading fast.
3/10