The 15:17 To Paris should be a great film showing 3 courageous US citizens stopped what could have been a horrible terrorist attack. Instead we are given nearly an hour and a half of meaningless story, horrible acting, and just a general pace that moves slower than one would ever want to experience.
For some reason a full length movie was decided to be made for this story which ultimately takes up around 10 minutes of the movie. With a 94 minute run time that leaves us with watching a story about 3 boys growing up throughout their lifes from meeting as small kids, going into the military, and an overly long stretch of their European vacation which led them to the train.
What hurts though is that almost all of their story growing up we see is meaningless. Nothing happens during it, we get no moments of excitement, and it all just quickly starts to drag from the start. Once we finally get to the moment itself it is over just as quickly as it starts and thats the entire movie.
With the legendary Clint Eastwood directing I guess we just expected more. Eastwood made the choice of instead of putting trained actors in this film they had the men who lived it play themselves. Now while not trying to knock them too much, they aren’t actors. It’s as simple as that. Spencer handled himself the best and had the most screen time while the other two were at times laughable. Even normal dialog seemed forced and over rehearsed. Nothing felt natural at any time. The only thing we have going for us is that Jenna Fischer and Judy Greer play the childrens moms in the beginning of the film.
Overall while being an incredible story trying to make it into a 90+ minute film is beyond rough. Instead of focusing on what happened viewers are given a 75 minute pointless, boring, and poorly acted story that no one asked for and a quick moment which everyone waited for. This is one that should be avoided, just read their book instead.
Score : 2/10
