Movie Review: "From Paris With Love"... No, Not Really.

From Paris With Love (2010) - John Travolta, Katia Smutniak 6/10

Hollywood has a very good track record for following the lead of the State Department when it comes to identifying bad guys to the world. During WW-II it was the Germans and Japanese. After the cold war they were all linked back to the Communist block. During the drug wars of Reagan and Bush, the bad guys were wearing South American faces. Initially, after 9/11 it was the Arabs who were holding Arnold's wife for ransom. Now, you frequently hear the word "Pakistanis" peppered in with Arabs.

So it was no surprise that Hollywood made a movie dedicated to the drug-running, bomb-making pimps and suicide bombers from Pakistan. Sadly, Pakistanis are not even given any character development. They are faceless, nameless, crazed villains who are massacred one after the other, in an assembly-line fashion. Like chickens at a poultry plant.

Enter, From Paris With Love.



John Travolta is playing the role of Raymond Davis. A special op soldier, who cleans the "trash". Kills at the drop of a hat. He has the license to kill, with the entire military might of the US behind him, including satellites orbiting in space that are mobilized into service with a click on his wristwatch.

An unfeeling, uncaring, arrogant murderer who flies in, kills dozens, and flies out. Just like our Raymond. As the voice on the phone says, he may be unorthodox, but "...he gets the job done".

France has the largest population of Muslims in Europe. Most of them are from Northern Africa. After 9/11 the right-wing racists in France have been trying their level best to paint Muslims in a corner. Piss them off, any way they can. In this movie, John Travolta is hunting Pakistanis from Karachi, in Paris. The Pakistanis are shown to be the masterminds behind every vice on the Parisian street. They are so cold-blooded and calculating that they press into service unfocused, young, beautiful, white, Parisian girls and compel them to don suicide jackets for their nefarious ends. Yeah, that's one thing Pakistani fobs are good at. Getting the babes. Right.

Pakistanis are getting help to run cocaine in Paris from their best friends, the Chinese. The Chinese oprerate from their chain of Egg Fu Yung restaurants where the mild-mannered Chinese waiters and chefs carry AK-47s. It doesn't matter that cocaine is strictly a South American drug and has no association with Asia, but since cocaine is the drug of choice for Americans, that's what the Pakistanis be smuggling from Pakistan. Why confuse yourself with facts when your purpose is to smear and malign.

The most egregious and odious aspect of this however, is the attempt to directly link Islam, the religion, with terrorism. In the Pakistani hideout in the red-light area, from where they run their prostitution business, cut drugs and assemble their bombs, the word "Allah" in large lettering in Arabic is painted all over the walls. In one instant, you associate every known vice in the west to the world of Islam, it's most sacred symbols and icons. This not-so-subtle, subliminal imagery is akin to placing crosses and icons of Christianity in the homes of Ted Bundy, Ted Kaczynski or Dr. Hannibal Lecter. This is playing dirty and if the shoe was on the other foot, the Christians would be howling their heads off --and for good reason.

Muslims ?. Oh we are sleeping. We can't be bothered. We have not prepared ourselves for this high-tech, take-no-prisoners, psy-op war. We don't even know what it means! how dangerous it is and how it will shape our future. We will just slurp this movie down and return to our blissfully ignorant slumber.

*YAWN*

The only good thing about this movie is Kasia Smutniak. The philandering suicide bomber.