The 15:17 to Paris

The 15:17 to Paris is Clint Eastwood's newest production that follows three childhood best friends on their backpacking trip around Europe that ultimately lands them in the middle of a terrorist attack. The actors are played by the real heroes of this story; they are not actors in every day life.

I have to say, I had high hopes for this movie. I do not remember seeing this story in the news, so I was interested to see what happened from the men that lived through it. Now, after seeing it, I was greatly letdown. While I didn't expect the war heroes to be great actors, I did expect the other actors to be decent. I was not impressed by any one of them. The child actors seemed extremely cheesy, talking about brotherhood when they're just kids in middle school. I highly doubt kids that age talk about brotherhood in the military. The mothers were also disappointing. Judy Greer and Jenna Fischer are well-known actresses from movies like "13 Going on 30" or the TV show "The Office." It honestly seemed like they'd never acted before in their lives.

If you are going to see this movie, and are expecting an action packed thriller....try another movie. The first hour and fifteen minutes is about how the three men came to be on that train. We follow them from middle school, to college, to basic training, and then to their backpacking trip. The entire train scene lasted about 15 minutes in total, and it was the best part by far. The soldiers did a great job of portraying what happened on that train, but waiting for over an hour to get there was not what I had signed up for.

Please do not get me wrong. Those men are heroes and they deserve to be recognized as such, but I did not want to watch them go out partying at the bars and jumping from hostel to hostel for an hour. I'm not sure this movie did them the justice they deserved, even if they did do a wonderful job of showing us what happened on that train.

Sorry Clint Eastwood....maybe next time...