Bastille Day: Average Guy Movie Review

Idris Elba stars in this mediocre action movie in which an American pick pocket is linked to a terrorist bombing in Paris. When CIA Agent Sean Briar (Elba) is able to identify our friendly neighbourhood pick pocket as Michael Mason (Richard Madden) a game of cat and mouse across Paris ensues on the eve of the Bastille Day celebrations.

Bastille Day attempts to be like Bourne and Taken but doesn't quite make it. Elba's performance is like an overly cheesy combination of Jason Bourne, Brian Mills and Jack Bauer with really bad one liners included. Maybe he got tips from Gerard Butler on the set of London has Fallen. Briar's methods range from questionable to down right ridiculous. Mason is a low life pick pocket who's supposedly smart but comes across stupid at best and only cares for himself making it impossible to care what happens to him. It looks like the writers tried to emulate the relationship between Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson in Die Hard with a Vengeance but the result is more Die Hard 4.0; unnecessary and annoying.

If you've got 90 minutes to waste there's definitely worse movies you can watch. But unless you're looking for background noise you can do better.

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