Fridae

If Unstoppable was Speed on a train, you can think of Paris Express as Taxi with motorcycles. After all, it’s made by the same studio that brought us Taxi. In Paris Express, the protagonist is an ordinary Joe trying to make ends meet and keep his girlfriend happy while trying to be the fastest deliveryman in the city. Unfortunately for him, he’s the unluckiest deliveryman, his girlfriend is some sort of pretentious, walking bundle of nerves who tells her nouveau riche parents she’s dating a big businessman, his boss makes sport of his less-than-stellar capabilities.

If things can’t get any worse than this, a murderous international crime syndicate or two are attempting to destroy his career, kidnap his girlfriend, and force him to delivery a series of mysterious items to even more mysterious clients – all because of an identity mix-up.

If my boss were such an a*****e, if hell were preferable to my workplace environment and its denizens more sociable and less psychotic than my girlfriend, I’d just ride off into the sunset waving a “friendly” salute to all of them. But since there must be an action comedy for us to watch, the protagonist is forced to play secret agent and engage in all sorts of increasingly dangerous stunts and increasingly complicated schemes in order to save the girlfriend and job that the film seems to establish he shouldn’t care for if he were smart.

The real comedy here lies in the MacGuffins that our courier is forced to exchange for other MacGuffins, the series of crosses and double-crosses that are executed, and the series of hostages that get exchanged for each other – all happening with just the right amount of narrative bombast, all brilliantly executed in line with genre standards, and all making no sense whatsoever. We’re just here for the ride and to see how over the top things can get.

Paris Express is a film that knows how silly its premise is and exults in that silliness. It’s light, frothy, silly – and practically calls for a remake starring Vin Diesel.