2010 action film produced and co-written by Luc Besson and starring John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

James Reese (Meyers) is the personal aide to U.S. Ambassador in France. Unbeknownst to either the Ambassador or his beautiful French girlfriend Reese is leading a double life as a low level CIA operative. He juggles his responsibilities until he is ordered to team up with brash, trigger-happy, loose cannon Charlie Wax (Travolta).

Very violent Hilarity Ensues.

• Actor Allusion: Wax's favourite food is a 'Royale with Cheese'
• Anyone Can Die
• Anti-Hero: Charlie Wax.
• Awesomeness By Analysis

• Badass: Wax.
• Badass Beard: Adorns Travolta as Wax. To emphasize the point, comes with...
• Bald of Awesome: Again, Wax.
• Berserk Button: Charlie and the Chinese restaurant not having good egg foo young.
• Bilingual Bonus: The Chinese restaurant in which is called "Les Lotus des Neiges, which means "The Snow Lotus" in French.
• Bond One-Liner: "Wax on, Wax off". (Doubles as a Shout-Out to The Karate Kid, written by Luc Besson's writing partner Robert Mark Kamen.)
• Boom! Headshot!: The famous dinner scene. It wound up being a meme.
• Chessmaster: Reese's opening-scene game with his boss defines his character from the get-go. It's implied that this is the characteristic that lands Reese his big break.
• Chekhov's Gun:
• Cloak and Dagger: referenced by the characters
• Concealment Equals Cover: Happens repeatedly, but does get subverted once: Wax fires his pistol at a mook who's hiding safely behind a wall. Then he runs out of ammo, grabs an assault rifle and proceeds to shoot the mook through the wall.
• Dirty Cop: Charlie has shades of this.
• Fake American: Reese is played by Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers.
• Fake Nationality: Reese's French fiancee Caroline is played by Polish actress Kasia Smutniak.
• Gadget Watches: Wax gets one that can direct a satellite.
• Gay Paree
• High Heel Face Turn:
• Hollywood Silencer: Wax's silenced guns barely make a click and a whistle when they fire.
• I Call It Mrs.Jones: Wax's gun, which he smuggles into France in dozens of cans of energy drink and sings to.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: the only reason Wax manages to stay alive.
• Jerkass: The red-haired ambassador, who despite being told of a possible assassination attempt, and actually seeing a suicide bomber's car explode in front of her, is unable to understand the concept of "security breach" and blames the entire affair on Reese.
• John Travolta Is About To Shoot You
• Large Ham: Wax is hammy even by Travolta's standards.
• Pretty Little Headshots: Mostly averted, but used for style and emotional impact, .
  • And to avoid a huge explosion.
• Men Are the Expendable Gender: Averted; Wax has no problem shooting a female terrorist without turning evil.
• The Mole:
• One-Scene Wonder: The unnamed agent that drives Charlie to intercept the bomb car is one hell of a driver.
• Shout-Out: Wax gets himself a royale with cheese.
  • And "Wax on, Wax off".
• Surprise Checkmate
• Terrorists Without a Cause: We never really get a clear cut answer on why is plotting to other than . Arguably parodied because Wax explains a bit during the early part of the film, but Reese (and, since we're viewing the scene through his eyes, the audience) is too to understand it.
• The Triads and the Tongs: Wax and Reese have a run in with the Snakeheads.
• • • Which would turn it into Suicide by Cop - .
• Wham! Line:
• Wok Fu: There is a cross between a gunfight and a fistfight in a Chinese restaurant.