Directed by Clint Eastwood
Written by Dorothy Blyskal, based on the book by Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos, Spencer Stone, and Jeffrey E. Stern
Cast: Spencer Stone, Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos, Mark Moogalian, Isabelle Risacher Moogalian, Judy Greer, Jenna Fischer, Ray Corasani, Chris Norman, Tony Hale, Thomas Lennon, Jaleel White, P.J. Byrne, Vernon Dobtcheff, Matthew Barnes
Soundtrack: Christian Jacob
When I was a boy, one movie I always tuned in for was 1955’s To Hell and Back, starring Audie Murphy as himself, based on his WWII memoir of the same name; so the concept of real-life heroes portraying themselves in a movie about their lives is not exactly foreign to me.
However, Murphy already had an acting career going by the time To Hell and Back came along, not to mention the filmmakers had a bevy of material to work with, not just a single, relatively short event, so I was very curious to see what Clint Eastwood and company would fill the rest of the running time with for The 15:17 to Paris (I mean, he did an okay job for Sully).
Well, unfortunately, the answer is not much.
I don’t know if Eastwood was on a kick of Richard Linklater films (you know, where nothing happens) when he was putting this project together, but the end result is about ninety-three percent pure boredom and seven percent true life action.
No disrespect to the real heroes, what they did on that train was an incredible act of bravery, but none of them have an acting bone in their body, which I can forgive. What is less forgivable are the many people who make a living this way who turn in performances that seem nearly as amateur. To be fair, a lot of that appears to be as written, but still, it’s bad. About the only worthy performance in the film comes from good old Vernon Dobtcheff (aka Max Kalba, aka Brunwald Butler).
To put it bluntly, almost nothing is right about 15:17 to Paris.
The stunt-casting is a misfire, the screenplay is lacking, many scenes serve no purpose whatsoever, and, ultimately, a film that attempts to fully bank itself on realism could not feel more stilted.
The one thing it does get right is the attack itself, but it’s not worth waiting nearly ninety minutes for. Maybe someone else could have turned this into a compelling piece of cinema, I don’t know, but at the end of the day I think it would have worked a hundred percent better as a documentary (or perhaps a combination of documentary and movie, like what Steven Soderbergh wanted to do with Moneyball before he was fired).
It pains me to say so, but, I can’t recommend this one at all; not even for free.
Rating: ★☆☆☆☆