After his successful hits American Sniper and Sully, director Clint Eastwood took a gamble on producing a movie based on the memoir “The 15:17 to Paris: The True Story of a Terrorist, a Train and Three American Soldiers,” adapted by Dorothy Blyskal. Three American friends from Sacramento board a train from Amsterdam to Paris and succeed in stopping terrorist Ayoub El Khazzani from shooting innocent passengers.

The event made international headlines, which sparked the interest of Eastwood. However, the veteran filmmaker’s interesting decision to cast the heroes Spencer Stone, Anthony Sadler and Alek Skarlatos to play themselves proved to be fatal for the movie.

Though these men were both charming and appealing, they weren’t as professional as Bradley Cooper playing the American sniper, Chris Kyle or Tom Hanks playing legendary pilot, Sully. Because they have never acted before, their acting seemed stiff and unfortunately could not bring the movie to life. Their heroism, though admirable, wasn’t able to translate fluently into the film.

Perhaps Eastwood believed these heroes would be able to bring authenticity to the screen, but that proved to be wrong. The incident on the train lasted only a few minutes, which left the movie scrambling to cook up a plot for the next 90-something minutes.

This ultimately leads to flashbacks that show the audience the lives of the heroes and their childhoods. The flashbacks include the three friends meeting in middle school, Stone getting inducted in the military and chunks of scenes showing the trio’s trip to Europe. The film portrays them as typical tourists vacationing around Europe taking selfies and ordering alcohol at various restaurants. It seemed more like video footage taken by friends on a trip rather than a cinematographic shot of a journey.

Though the heroes are no doubt heroic, “The 15:17 to Paris” failed to keep the audience’s attention and prolonged too many unnecessary scenes, including the childhood scenes and their trip to Europe. What could’ve been a great film became a dull collage of clips with a short plot and unprofessional acting. This movie deserves 6/10 stars because it is too humdrum and conflict doesn’t arise until the trio steps on the train and is faced with a violent terrorist.