Boy, if an action movie was ever a throwback to the 80's action movies, this is it. In what could only be described as Arnold Swarzenegger-esque, Jean Reno (The Crimson Rivers) runs around Paris and then Tokyo kicking ass and taking names.

Reno plays Paris cop Hubert Fiorentini who seems to have this ability to shoot people with large guns and they go flying across the room. During an arrest at a nightclub, he punches the son of the police chief and is put on two months leave of absence. He gets a phone call from a man in Tokyo who says that a women who he used to be involved with 20 years earlier, 19 actually, has passed away and left her entire state to him. So he flies out to Tokyo where he meets his old army buddy and they go to the lawyer. Hubert discovers that his former lover, had a daughter, Yumi, and is his daughter too. They go to the wake and while visiting the body, Hubert discovers some substance on the face of his dead lover. He discovers that the substance is cyanide and that somebody killed her. The Yakuza to be exact, he knows this also because they are trying to capture his daughter who has $200 million of her mothers money which was the Yakuza. Anyway, big fight lots of bad guys die.

This action movie is fun but it should have been produced in 1986. Reno's character is one cheesy line away from "I'll be back." The story is complicated in that it is so long but every difficulty is easily solved. Jean Reno continues to be one of my favorite actors and he didn't disappoint. Since he is not doing many American movies still, I will continue to watch these French movies and try and deal the best I can.

The amazing thing is that Luc Besson wrote this movie, and he has done such quality movies, mainly "Le Femme Nikita" and "Leon: The Professional." This movie is so unrealistic in the action that I was surprised that he did this movie this way unless it was one of those "just for fun" movies, which this could very well be.

So since there is not much to the movie, I won't have much of a review. It's a great 80's movie but since its 2005, why don't you just rent an Arnold movie instead, unless you want to watch Japanese people speak French, and then get this.

Brian - the Naked Gun