You might assume that the “Has Fallen” in the title of this Anglo-French thriller connotes the presence of Scottish lunk Gerard Butler (as in Angel Has Fallen, London Has Fallen and Olympus Has Fallen), but there’s no Gerard in sight. Instead, in this TV spin-off from the movie series, we have Tewfik Jallab (pictured below) as protection officer Vincent Taleb, who’s acting as minder to France’s defence minister Philippe Bardin (Nathan Willcocks).
When terrorist mayhem breaks out at a plush reception at the British Embassy in Paris, Vincent finds himself teaming up with feisty, fearless MI6 agent Zara Taylor (Ritu Araya, from Humans and The Umbrella Academy) to keep a team of merciless assailants at bay. It’s the beginning of an ultra-violent relationship which, refreshingly, doesn’t turn romantic, since Zara is gay and Vincent is, unfeasibly, all tangled up with the French President, Juliette Levesque (Emmanuelle Bercot).
Initially you might fear that Paris Has Fallen is a mere shoot-’em-up potboiler which barely rises above junk status, but as its eight episodes unwind, screenwriter Howard Overman finds room to tap into a few chin-stroking issues. Chief among these are the devastating tide of collateral damage that gets unleashed by wars, and the amoral cynicism of the politicians who promote them.
Alongside some strong work from Araya (pictured below) and Jallab (who was in ace French cop show Spiral), the show’s major calling card is Sean (Mission: Impossible) Harris’s Jacob Pearce. Pearce was a Captain in the French Foreign Legion and served in Afghanistan. Allegedly he “went rogue”, like a Kandahar Captain Kurtz, though there's more to this than meets the eye. But the upshot was that someone in the chain of command decided that the best way to deal with it was by betraying Pearce to the Taliban.
The latter duly slaughtered all his men and tortured Pearce mercilessly during his six years in prison, so that now his body looks like a patch of turf over which people have been driving earth-moving equipment and threshing machines. Frankly it’s not a pretty sight, and it’s hardly surprising that Pearce’s enduring horror-show has left him a hollowed-out husk of the man he used to be.
It’s his blazing lust for vengeance which is keeping him alive. But it’s not the Taliban he’s after, but the kingpins of the French and British establishment who sold him out. These include politicians, spooks and fat-cat arms dealers, all of whom find themselves hopelessly wrong-footed by Pearce and his ruthless cadre of operatives.
Adhering to the dictum of “speak softly and carry a big stick”, Harris is a mesmerising presence as he methodically carries out his campaign of revenge. His voice never rising above a hoarse, haunted whisper, he projects the unearthly calm of a man who, in his own mind, has already died several times over. The prospect of dying again doesn’t trouble him, and if he has to blow up a few thousand people with a nuclear “dirty bomb” along the way, that’s just the way it is.
So, you get loads of action, some strong characters and loads of lush, panoramic shots of all the nicest bits of Paris. Bingeworthy.
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