Movie Review - Bastille Day

FOR a thriller, this movie is a drag. Although only a little over 90 minutes long, it feels so much longer.
The story is set before the Bastille Day celebrations in Paris.
An American pickpocket called Michael Mason (Richard Madden) is ­stealing wallets, passports and watches from unsuspecting people at a park, while his female ­accomplice distracts the victims.
They go their separate ways and he pawns his loot before heading to another part of the city where he sees a distraught-looking woman (Charlotte Le Bon) with a large ­shopping bag.
The woman, Zoe, was earlier told by her boyfriend to place the shopping bag – containing a bomb hidden in a teddy bear – inside an empty office building.
When she realises that a cleaning crew is still inside, she leaves the building with the bag and plans to throw it into the river.
However, Michael steals it, and after seeing there is nothing in it, dumps it outside an apartment building.
The bomb goes off, killing four people, and Michael’s face, which was caught on a traffic camera, is now posted all over the media as a terror suspect.
CIA agent Sean Briar (Idris Elba) is called in to bring Mason into custody, and to find out what he knows about the terrorists.
However, Sean soon discovers that Michael is nothing more than a common pickpocket.
The two have to work together to find Zoe in order to discover who the terrorists are and their next targets.
The plot is nothing to write home about, and the only thing that keeps you in the cinema is Elba’s onscreen charisma.
Madden is not very convincing as a pickpocket, and Le Bon is annoying as the clueless Zoe.
Overall, watch it just for Elba, and pray the actor is picked to play the next James Bond.