10 Risky Movie Moments That Totally Failed
8. Heroes Playing Themselves - The 15:17 To Paris
The 15:17 to Paris is certainly one of the more forgettable movies in the great Clint Eastwood's directorial oeuvre, but it'd be even less memorable were it not for Eastwood's strangely and hilariously unnecessary creative dice-roll, to have the story's real-life heroes play themselves in the lead roles.
The film is a dramatisation of the 2015 Thalys train attack, in which a man opened fire onboard a train from Amsterdam to Paris, but was ultimately stopped by three American men - Spencer Stone, Anthony Sadler, and Alek Skarlatos. As a result, the attacker was apprehended before he could cause any casualties.
Despite Eastwood reportedly eyeing Kyle Gallner, Jeremie Harris, and Alexander Ludwig to play Stone, Sadler, and Skarlatos, he ultimately decided to just have the three men play themselves.
Though it's a bold and intriguing experiment, to see three real-life heroes re-enact their own headline-making act, it ultimately isn't one that works at all.
The trio aren't experienced actors and it shows, even if the script admittedly doesn't give them all that much to work with.
Would hiring actual actors to portray the three men have transformed The 15:17 to Paris into a great film? Absolutely not, but it would've surely felt a little less empty.