Off-duty US Airman Spencer Stone was asleep on an Amsterdam to Paris train when Ayoub El-Khazzani emerged from the toilet with an AK-47 and enough ammunition to kill everyone on board.
But when Stone saw him take aim, he did something remarkable. He ran straight into his firing line and, after the Moroccan’s gun jammed, managed to wrestle him to the ground.
With the help of his companions, Anthony Sadler and Alek Skarlatos, the gunman was rendered unconscious and tied-up. Then Stone turned his attention to a wounded passenger who was close to bleeding to death on the carriage floor.
August 21, 2015 could have another 9/11 or 7/7. But as nobody died in the attack, it is already fading in obscurity. The film’s tense and expertly staged finale is a fitting reminder of this astonishingly selfless act.
Eastwood has cast the three friends as themselves but, while they are undoubtedly heroes they are definitely not actors. And that’s one of the problems.
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In the overlong build-up Stone gamely tries to recreate his military training before he joins his friends to re-stage their holiday snaps in front of the tourist hotspots of Rome, Berlin, Venice and Amsterdam.
But the acting always feels stilted and the action feels aimless. Watching them take selfies at the Colosseum and order pizza on the Grand Canal, neither builds tension nor adds depth to their characters. It’s like watching a stranger’s holiday videos.
Some might also feel uncomfortable with the film’s overt religious and political messages. In an early scene we see a primary school Stone show a young Sadler his collection of replica automatic weapons. At one point, he even pulls out a real shotgun, which he says he uses for hunting.
As his devout Christian single mother (Judy Greer) is portrayed wholly sympathetically, this seems to be Eastwood thumbing his nose at the gun control lobby.
There’s also a lot of God in this film. In one scene, Skarlatos’s mother has a conversation with the Lord before she sees him off at the airport. Apparently, He has told her something remarkable will happen on the trip. Then in Venice, Stone is struck with a mystical feeling that he is being “catapulted” towards something important.
The inference is that the righteous Christian God put him on the train and caused the evil Muslim’s gun to miraculously jam.
As for the poor soul who was shot in the neck, might the Lord have intervened sooner?