In this Clint Eastwood adaptation of the real-life story written and experienced by Alek Skarlatos, Spencer Stone and Anthony Sadler, three men perform an act of heroism by stopping a terrorist attack from occurring on a train to Paris.

From the trailer, I expected the majority of the movie to be filmed on the train that the attack occurred on. Instead, the movie was just one, long backstory to the three men.

The majority of the film was a telling of each of the men’s lives leading up to the terrorist attack. It starts when they are children who struggle with single parents, annoying teachers, and bullying. The single mothers of Skarlatos and Stone are played by Jenna Fischer, best known for her role in the hit TV show “The Office,” and Judy Greer.

Fast forward a few years to when Stone and Skarlatos sign up for the military. They both dreamt about serving their country one day, even back when they were kids playing war in their backyard. They go into separate branches, but keep in touch.

Years later, Stone and Skarlatos plan to backpack across Europe while they are both on leave. They invite childhood friend Sadler to come along, and they set out for Europe. While travelling to many countries in just a few weeks, they meet new people and thoroughly enjoy themselves.

The travel scenes were definitely the most boring and cringe-worthy in the film. They include many montages and repeatedly stopping at different sites to take selfies. Their trip takes place right before they get on the train where the attack occurs, but they really stretched it out to build tension for the climax. In my opinion, there should have been a lot fewer shots of beautiful sights they saw on the trip and more scenes of what actually happened on the train.

Throughout the film, there were snippets of the passengers and the terrorist walking on the train. Besides that, the men don’t actually get on the train until about three-fourths of the way into the film.

The film was not exactly what I thought it would be when I heard that it was produced and directed by Eastwood. Based on his past films, I expected much more action than what was in “The 15:17 to Paris.”

Instead, the only fight scene in the movie is when the three men fight the terrorist that is trying to shoot passengers on the train. It lasted five minutes and was near the end of the movie.

The last few minutes of the movie showed real footage of Skarlatos, Stone, and Sadler earning the National Order of the Legion of Honor medal from the French government. This scene was the most heartwarming and probably the best in the entire film. It switched back and forth between the real footage of the ceremony and their filmed scene.

The footage put their lives into perspective with the audience by incorporating the realness of the situation they were put in. I liked the way that they ended the film with that because, if someone did not see the trailer before going to see the movie, it would be a very dramatic and appealing way to explain that the actors were actually the men portraying their own lives.

The men portrayed themselves in the film, which I thought would be a remarkable touch to the screen adaptation to the book they wrote. Knowing that they are not professional actors, I did expect some flaws in their performances. I just didn’t expect that much.

Their acting was pretty horrendous. From corny jokes to awkward and forced laughter, it was worse than I expected.

I can’t just hate on them, though. They were not given much to work with with the underdeveloped dialogue that the screenwriters shoved down their throats. The scripts were just terrible in the way that they tried really hard to make it seem like they were having normal, millennial conversations.

For example, the reoccurrence of the word “selfie.” During the scenes where the guys were travelling across Europe, basically all Sadler said was that he needed to stop so that he could take a selfie. Also, I should have kept tally of how many times the actors would pause and then say, “You know.” We get it. We all KNOW. It was pathetic in a word.

If you look aside from their acting skills and dialogue, there were some upsides to paying $8 to watch an hour-and-a-half backstory. For instance, the story itself is an inspiring one. It encourages people to stand strong in a challenging time and always be prepared for the unthinkable.   

For the most part I enjoyed the film. I liked the story and the fact that the real men played themselves, even though they are really bad actors and could have done with a better script. Also, I am proud that the three men had enough courage to relive the traumatic experiences they had on the train.

Overall, it was a decent movie that told the story of how three ordinary men became heroes.

Rate:★★★☆☆