Bastille Day

Idris Elba's name has cropped up so many times with James Bond that, invariably, any action film he takes on is going to be seen as an audition for the role. So it goes with Bastille Day, a clunker of a thriller that genuinely borders on exploitation, given recent events in the French capital.

Game of Thrones' Richard Madden is an American pickpocket who inadvertently takes a rucksack belonging to Charlotte Le Bon. The rucksack contains explosives, which Le Bon has been coerced by her partner to deliver to planet inside the headquarters of a political party in Paris. When she decides not to go through with it, Madden snatches her bag and dumps the rucksack in the middle of a crowded street. The bag then explodes, with Madden's visage picked up by CIA surveillance in Paris. Enter Idris Elba, a hardened agent who gets the job done by any means necessary. On it goes as Madden protests his innocence whilst a group of middle-aged thugs / terrorists / who cares tries to continue a nefarious plan around Paris.The plot's essentially a retread of Die Hard and Die Hard With A Vengeance, with helpful smatterings of Taken and Luc Besson-esque action sequences peppered through the film to give it all a bit of texture.

You'd think, given by the poster, trailer, the fact it's set in Paris, has a middle-aged action star and so forth that this is along the lines of Taken - enjoyable tosh that fills out 90 minutes with a certain amount of entertainment. Not so, unfortunately. Despite Idris Elba and Richard Madden's decent chemistry together, there's far too little action or excitement going on here to make it any way credible. Kelly Reilly's in there as the CIA chief who's trying to put a lid on Elba's cavalier tactics whilst the villains are entirely forgettable. Not only that, the action sequences are spaced out too far and the narrative that strings them all together is far too weak and predictable.

Instead of letting itself go and giving itself over to the ridiculousness of it, director James Watkins - who previously did the not-as-bad-as-you'd-think Woman In Black - tries to turn Bastille Day in a taut thriller.Sadly, it just doesn't work. The gaps in the budget are painfully evident, especially in a large riot scene towards the end and the clunky, wooden dialogue that both Elba and Madden are forced to work with just pushes it further into the bargain basement.