The 15:17 to Paris Review

The 15:17 to Paris is the true story of three young men (Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, and Anthony Sadler) who successfully prevented a terrorist attack on a train to Paris without any lives being lost. The three heroes play themselves in the movie.

Clint Eastwood's movies have been kind of a mixed bag for me. On one hand, he directed the masterpiece that is Letters from Iwo Jima, along with Sully, which was pretty good. On the other hand, he also directed Flags of our Fathers, which is literally a movie about a picture of a flag. Sure,  there was a whole controversy surrounding the picture, but the whole thing just comes out boring when made into a movie. Despite that, I had high hopes for this movie.

Keyword: HAD.

There's really only one way of saying my opinion: This movie is terrible.

The true story is incredible and I have the upmost respect for them and for what they did in a time of need, but it's just such a terrible movie. Honestly, I had trouble finding much good to say about it. Because there really isn't much good about it! I will say that they had good intentions when making this movie. Also, the train scene is the best part of the movie, despite the fact that it is only less than 10 minutes long and takes 80 minutes of movie to reach that point.

You heard me right: 80 minutes.

Let me give you a break down of those 80 minutes. 20 minutes of it is dedicated to their childhood, which seems to be there only take a jab at Christian private schools. Serves nothing for the plot, it's just there. Then, 20 minutes of it dedicated to Spencer and Alek's military training/service, yet Anthony gets no arc for some reason. Again, serves nothing to the plot: it's just filler. Finally, we get 40 minutes of the 3 guys touring Europe, which at least shows why they were in Europe when the attack (almost) happened. These 40 minutes are especially boring and they're mostly just filler also. So, all-in-all, 8/9 of this movie is just filler and serves nothing to the plot. That reminds me: there's practically no plot to begin with!

If that wasn't dreadful enough, the acting is atrocious. The best performances are from Pam Beesley and the mom from Jurassic World/Ant-Man, who play Alek and Spencer's moms respectively, but it's only because they are the only people in the movie who actually have experience acting! The kid actors are pretty bad, but at least I can say they are actors. Because remember, the heroes on the train play themselves.

WOW, ARE THEY TERRIBLE AT PLAYING THEMSELVES!

Again, I am beyond happy that they did what they did. But every line that they delivered in this movie made me cringe. Somehow, these guys made some lines that shouldn't have been funny turn out to be hilarious and vice-versa. And it sure doesn't help when the dialogue is terrible to begin with. I actually took a screenshot of a line from the movie on IMDB just to prove to you how awful the dialogue truly is:

Ughhhh. So cringey.

Score: 2/10

It's just plain bad, with almost no redeeming qualities. I recommend you read about the actual event instead, because it truly is a great story. But not all great stories should be made into movies.