Alek Skarlatos Anthony Sadler Spencer Stone Jenna Fischer Judy Greer
It’s a long time before you get on the train to
Paris, although there are a few introductory scenes about the terror on the
train. But first, you must endure
the heroes’ background story: acting-out kids in school with lousy
teachers and principal and witness how poorly equipped a school can be in
guiding children with learning disabilities or other minor problems that could
have easily been remedied with behavioral methods. If a student stares out the window and has difficulty
focusing, a teacher’s answer immediately is medication without having the child
evaluated by a professional with that specialty.
The three friends are eventually split up
(Anthony going to another school and Alek being sent to Oregon to live with his
father), but maintain a close friendship.
Despite his history of a reading disability and difficulty following
instructions, Spencer Stone manages to qualify for military service (airman
first class in the U.S. Air Force) and realize his dream of being in the
military. The other two forge
different careers, but they remain fast friends, and reunite in young adulthood
to take a brief sojourn through Europe.
After partying their way through Rome and Venice, they decide to take
the train to Paris. But the thrust
of this story is that while onboard, the three heroically foil a terrorist
attack with their quick thinking and physical preparedness.
Although Director Clint Eastwood’s aim of
putting these men’s story on screen (and having them act out their roles as
adults) is an interesting one, the execution of the project falls short for a
number of reasons, primarily because the men are not actors, and it shows. Secondly, screenwriter Dorothy Blyskal’s
dialog is wooden with hackneyed phrases abounding. Third, Blu Murray’s editing uses the current fad of jerking
the viewer back and forth between past and present. It seems like most of Eastwood’s cast and crew are
relatively inexperienced, and needed more guidance on his part. Perhaps he is reflective of and buying
into the recent trend of skepticism toward and discounting of professional
experience and expertise, even though he clearly doesn’t fit into that category
(e.g., his accolades for American Sniper,
Letters from Iwo Jima, Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River, and Unforgiven). Not only the actors, but the writer, editor, and other staff
working on the film trend toward the inexperienced.
Sadler, Skarlatos, and Stone wrote a memoir
about the experience (with Jeffrey E. Stern) on which the film is based; but I
have an idea the part about their early years in school is penned and
configured by the filmmakers, perhaps from the trio’s personal accounts or from
their own perceptions of school. This
part of the film is the most tedious; toward the end, when the drama occurs on
the train, the movie picks up considerably.
Although the idea behind 15:17 to Paris is intriguing, the
execution falls far short of its promise.
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