MovieChat Forums > Bastille Day (2016) Discussion > Route...Data...American!!!

Route...Data...American!!!


As I watched this I heard Idris Elba say Route and Data the American way and when he answered the door to that French guy who asked "You American" to which Idris said yes I knew this was USA casting an English Actor to play an American role!

But here's the thing that winds me up!
Idris Elba still sounds like Idris Elba therefor making him still English in this movie!!!
Whatever next...Kelly Reilly playing an American working for the CIA?

Why can't they just allow him to be English working for the CIA? I mean in real life are English people not allowed to work for the CIA? If they are not then I guess that would explain it all lol - But I'm sure this isn't the case.

They did this exact same thing to Liam Neeson in Battleship

It's wound me up on this film even more though as I love Idris Elba and it just winds me up seeing British people speak American but in an English voice! Like they have forgot the UK. I for one would say FU if someone told me to do that. Sod the money, I'm a proud Brit

Rant Over

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To continue your rant I feel the exact same way! I love Idris more so for his English accent. Changing accents is a Hollywood thing to appeal to the Americans I'm sure, it makes me mad Australian actors are selling out their Aussie accents too!
Maybe the Americans are short of actors and only find actors from the UK and Australia the most appealing. It's ridiculas they are selling out damm it!
My rant is over now, cheers.

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The funniest part of this is that Americans LOVE British, Australian, Scottish, Irish, South African....really ANY non-American accent unconditionally and irrationally. Why a director thinks taking this away is a good thing for marketing purposes or story purposes is beyond me. It's funny hearing your perspectives though because as an American I'm annoyed at how much self-loathing we have about our own accents when speaking English. When one of my friends over in the UK was complaining about a lack of dating prospects I told him all he needs to do is come over to the US and start talking and the rest will be history lol.

TLDR though is that this wouldn't appeal to Americans, it's probably the director making this decision because they think it helps the story.

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