Review: The 15:17 to Paris

The true story of three life-long American friends (Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, and Anthony Sadler, as themselves) travelling around Europe who are faced with a terrorist situation on a train. The film flashes back to their somewhat delinquent childhood (Judy Greer and Jenna Fischer play two of the mums), as well as the military days of Spencer and Alek whilst Anthony goes to college. They agree to meet up somewhere in Europe when Spencer and Alek are on leave. Thomas Lennon cameos as a middle-school principal.

Director Clint Eastwood (“American Sniper”, “Sully”) gives us another true-life tale of American heroism with this 2018 re-enactment. Unfortunately, he’s tried for something a little different and fancier than usual, and it flops and dies on him. The film just doesn’t work due to the approach Clint has taken in telling the story. Initially hearing that Clint was telling a story in a different way than usual was what actually intrigued me going into the film. Basing a film around such a short incident may not have been the brightest idea to be honest, but “Patriots Day” got away with it, so it’s not impossible. Clint and screenwriter Dorothy Blyskal (normally working as a production assistant, oddly enough) attempt this weird blend of docudrama and schmaltz, and it’s lumpy as hell. He even goes for an awkward attempt at cinema verite when the guys are in Europe which is…yeah, no thanks Clint. Leave that to the French. And the 1960s.

The casting of the real-life guys creates at least two problems. One, they’re incredibly wooden actors who don’t even convincingly portray themselves. You’ve got a trio of non-actors starring in a non-documentary version of the events they really took part in. So whatever verisimilitude Clint was hoping for doesn’t pull through, only made worse by the inclusion of some very familiar character actors like Tony Hale, Thomas Lennon (who is genuinely amusing here), Judy Greer, and the lovely Jenna Fischer. Secondly, if you don’t already know the story going in (and that included me), by casting the three guys themselves, you know they’re gonna make it out of this deadly situation alive. Yeah, I guess most people who knew that Clint cast the three guys probably read further into it and realised what the story was about, but I didn’t read further and ultimately didn’t fear for these guys’ lives at all. The film does have a sense of humour which is nice, but ultimately not able to save it. I wanted to like this. I especially admire the one guy who isn’t military, he just instinctively tries to save his mates and therefore everyone else. That’s true heroism to me. “United 93” heroism. 

An uninteresting film from a normally pretty interesting and eclectic filmmaker. Clint’s trying something a bit different here and it just doesn’t come off. Maybe if he’d stuck to either the docudrama approach or the more Hollywood approach solely, the film might’ve been better. As is, it’s like oil and water trying to co-exist. Even “Sully” was better than this, and that was pretty much TV-movie material. A documentary approach to this subject would’ve been far more appealing and successful.

Rating: C