From Paris With Love

Hollywood nastiness towards older ­female actors may be a long-running sore, but a sliver of consolation might emerge from watching 56-year-old John Travolta wheezing about, Glock in hand, playing at action heroes. He is CIA agent Charlie Wax, a shoot-first-ask-questions-later wild-card (note the shaven-head and maverick keffiyeh scarf). On a ­mission in Paris to take out a drugs ring, he ­buddies-up with agency new boy Jonathan Rhys Meyers (from the ­sponsored-by-Armani, James Bond school of spooks). Trouble starts at ­customs with a sweary rant at officials who have confiscated Wax's energy drinks. A handful of shootouts and bombings later, the criminal stakes have upped from dirtbag coke dealers to a ­Pakistani terror cell. How? Who knows? I may have been distracted by the sleights of choreography and editing constructing action sequences around the none too nimble JT. But his trash-talking gusto – though a blatant Pulp Fiction pastiche – gives a bit of life to proceedings.