¡°Everybody knocks out a flop every now and then,¡± quipped Clint Eastwood during a recent interview to promote his latest movie, ¡°The 15:17 to Paris.¡±

The film forms part of an informal trilogy dedicated to real-life examples of American derring-do, following on from ¡°Sully¡± (2016) and ¡°American Sniper¡± (2014). Yet it¡¯s also the most experimental of the three, thanks to Eastwood¡¯s bold decision to re-create the 2015 Thalys train attack ¡ª in which a trio of U.S. backpackers foiled a terrorist gunman ¡ª using many of the actual protagonists.

Six decades into his career, the filmmaker probably has better things to worry about than the opinions of a few critics, but the response to the movie has been overwhelmingly negative. Though a few writers have rallied to its defense, it has been widely lambasted as ¡°dramatically inert¡± (The Guardian), ¡°defiantly amateurish¡± (Time Out) and ¡°too muffled and often too dull to make an impact¡± (The New Yorker). The esteemed French periodical Cahiers du Cinema, normally one of the director¡¯s staunchest advocates, declared simply: ¡°Eastwood¡¯s latest is a shipwreck.¡±