Warning: Major spoilers for Paris Has Fallen below!Paris Has Fallenhas made me intensely nostalgic for a certain real-time thriller series from the 2000s. I’m a fan of theHas Fallenmovie franchiseand was naturally intrigued whenParis Has Fallenwas announced. I’m a little disappointed that the show didn’t confirm my fan theory thatGerard Butler’s Banning would become the U.S. President, but the first season is still a pulpy, well-paced thriller with a great villain performance by Sean Harris. It also reminds me of shows likeStrike Backor24with its combination of action, procedural, and character drama.
Shows with that mixture are becoming rarer, andParis Has Fallengets the balancejustright. Each episode has a race against the clock alongside plot twists and action scenes - but it still finds time to flesh out the characters too. While it doesn’t quite rank up there with24, I still found myself binging it.Paris Has Fallen’sendingalso teases a possible second season- and a location change - which I really hope comes to pass.
Is Gerard Butler’s Mike Banning In Paris Has Fallen?
Gerard Butler’s profitable Has Fallen action franchise spans 3 movies with a fourth on the way and a brand new TV installment titled Paris Has Fallen.
Paris Has Fallen Makes Me Realize How Much I Still Miss 24
Maybe one reason I enjoyedParis Has Fallenwas due to how much it feels like24. Every episode has some kind of ticking clock, be it tracking down a bomb or trying to rescue a hostage. It has the same blend of feeling groundedandbeing utterly ludicrous at the same time. For instance,the finale features the show’s hero Vincent (Tewfik Jallab) deciding the only way to save Paris from a dirty bomb is to kidnap the French President (Emmanuelle Bercot), using her as bait to lure the villain into the open.
Director Mathieu Kassovitz (La Haine) was originally cast as Vincent inParis Has Fallen, but dropped out due to creative differences.
That’s a move that comes right out of the Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) playbook, who himself managed to kidnap a corrupt President during24. Silly as their plotlines can be,Paris Has Fallenand24move too fast to leave audiences time to pick apart plot holes. The two shows are also alike in that they examine the personal cost that comes with the work the heroes do. Bauer’s private life is a flaming wreck, having lost his wife and many friends in the line of duty - even though he saved many others in exchange.
I really like the core dynamicParis Has Fallenbuilds between its heroes Vincent and Zara (Ritu Arya), an MI6 operative. It’s not a terribly humorous show, but the buddy cop dynamic they form helps bring some levity.Like Jack, the show’s protagonists struggle to maintain any kind of personal life between surveillance operations and gunfights, and are often forced between a bad choice or an even worse one. The series definitely took notes from24, but it still has the DNA of theHas Fallenfilms to set it apart.
Paris Has Fallen Beats 24 In One Key Area
Sean Harris' Pearce gives Has Fallen its best villain to date
The original series of24ended in 2010, and as much as I loved it, I’ll admit the show was feeling creaky towards the finale. It had burned through so many characters and storylines that it began to repeat itself and lacked the same intensity of previous years. If there was another area I found it lacking, it was creating great villains. There were exceptions, like the odious Charles Logan (Gregory Itzin), but24rarely had time to flesh out its antagonists. That’s one wayParis Has Fallenbests it, with Pearce (Sean Harris) being a fantastic bad guy.
2013
50%
2016
28%
2019
38%
2024
N/A
Pearce is a former French Foreign Legion soldier who was betrayed by those in power and suffered horrific torture under the Taliban. All of his men were also killed, and the series follows his carefully laid plans to get revenge. With24, the series moved so fast that it often sacrificed any meaningful character development for the villains in favor of keeping the story moving, butParis Has Fallenreally takes time to get into Pearce’s head. He might be a vicious killer, but I found it hard not to sympathize with the ordeals he suffered through.
… 24 had great foes for Jack Bauer like Logan, Nina Myers (Sarah Clarke), or Christopher Henderson (Peter Weller), but few had the depth or complexity of Pearce.
Pearce isParis Has Fallen’sactual protagonist, with his goal being to expose corruption at the highest levels of power, and the character had a complete arc the season was built around. Again,24had great foes for Jack like Logan, Nina Myers (Sarah Clarke), or Christopher Henderson (Peter Weller), but few had the depth or complexity of Pearce. Assuming a second season happens, I think the show will struggle to find another villain half as interesting.
Paris Has Fallen’s Success Bodes Well For The 24 Movie
A 24 movie is said to be in development
The24franchise has been dormant since 2017’s failed offshootLegacy, while it’s been a full decade since Sutherland played Jack Bauer. It was confirmed in 2024 that a24movie was being developed, though plot details are being kept under wraps. In addition to giving me severe24vibes,Paris Has Fallenconfirmed this type of breakneck thriller can still work.The streaming success of theHas Fallenspinoff in countries like the UK confirms there’s still an audience for24too.
Times have changed since24was in its prime, and admittedly, the last few seasons weren’t its strongest. Still, I’d love to see Sutherland back as Bauer at least one more time, andshows likeParis Has Fallenare keeping24’sspirit alive. That bodes well for the planned movie, though while there have been plans to revive the property for years, I’ll wait until it’s actually greenlit before getting excited.
Paris Has Fallen
Cast
Paris Has Fallen follows a protection officer and an MI6 operative as they join forces in the aftermath of a terrorist attack. Suspecting a mole, they race against time to uncover a larger conspiracy that threatens the safety of Paris.
24: Legacy
A spin-off of the original drama-thriller series on Fox, 24: Legacy follows a new protagonist, a former Army Sergeant named Eric Carter, who has returned from duty only to discover that a terrorist organization is hunting down him and his team. Having taken a flash drive with sensitive criminal information from them, the cell will stop at nothing to get them back. To survive and stop a colossal incoming threat, Carter reaches out to the CTU, the agency Jack Bauer worked for, to help him complete his new mission.
