3 DAYS TO KILL (Rated PG-13)

French director and writer Luc Besson has an extraordinary cinematic resume, having directed “La Femme Nikita” and “Leon: The Professional.”

His action style is most evident in his scripts for the “Taken” franchise, starring Liam Neeson as the tough guy.

For “3 Days to Kill,” directed by McG, no slouch himself in the high-octane action department, Luc Besson is co-screenwriter along with Adi Hasak, the script writer for “From Paris With Love,” another film in the same genre.

The interesting thing about these hard-boiled thrillers, other than an affinity for location shooting in Paris, the beautiful City of Lights, is the use of mature actors for tough guy roles.

Now Kevin Costner, dangerous international spy Ethan Renner, is in good company with the likes of John Travolta and Liam Neeson. Nearing retirement age, Costner’s CIA operative convincingly beats the stuffing out of guys half his age.

The film kicks off explosively at a hotel in Belgrade, Serbia, once the capital city of the former Yugoslavia. The bad guys show up in shiny blacks SUVs, ready for a major firefight, and Ethan is only too willing to oblige.

Trying to save the world from Europe’s most dangerous terrorists, including a creepy-looking guy known only as the Albino and the elusive mastermind who goes by the moniker of “The Wolf,” Ethan wants to finish the job and get out of the game.

Having been on the road for so long, Ethan is only a faint, distant memory to his teenage daughter Zooey (Hailee Steinfeld) and his estranged wife Christine (Connie Nielsen). Now, he desperately wants to reconnect with his family.

Ethan also has a seemingly terminal disease and he’s got little time left. Enter the mysterious vixen named Vivi (Amber Heard), with lips painted bright red and wearing leather latex like a dominatrix, Ethan’s new handler sent from CIA headquarters in Langley.

Beautiful and seductive, Vivi offers the dying CIA operative an offer he can’t refuse. Experimental drugs may extend his life, but first he’s got to accomplish one more extremely dangerous mission.

The good news is that the job gets him back to his home base in Paris, where he finds his shabby apartment has been taken over by squatters and his complaints to the local police go nowhere because the law won’t evict them during the cold winter months.

Zooey is attending an international school in Paris, while Christine has made a new life for herself with museum work that sometimes takes her to England. Ethan’s first encounters with his daughter are awkward and tentative.

One of the film’s running gags is that he buys a purple girl’s bike for Zooey, who prefers to ride the Metro with her friends, since her absent father never taught her how to ride a bike as a child. Ethan lugs the bike all over Paris, vainly hoping she will eventually use it.

Based upon intelligence reports about terrorist activities, Vivi recruits Ethan to eliminate “The Wolf” when he comes to Paris to meet with his accountant and to supply dirty bombs to the usual bad guys.

The mission becomes more complicated when, trying to balance his job and family for the first time ever, Ethan agrees to care for Zooey when Christine takes off for a three day business trip to London.

Not hip to the modern digital world, Ethan has a lot to learn about teenage behavior, having to show up for a conference with her school principal and then saving Zooey from sexual aggressors at an underground rave.

Ethan could be in the middle of gunning down a bunch of thugs in a fancy hotel room or interrogating a suspect, but then he’ll take time out to answer a cell phone call from Zooey, who usually rings at an inconvenient time.

As part of his planning for a quiet family dinner at home, Ethan interrupts his grilling of an Italian hoodlum to force him to tell Zooey over the phone his family recipe for a nice spaghetti sauce.

There’s also the running gag of Ethan having taken a Middle Eastern limo driver into custody, keeping him locked in the trunk, but seeking advice from him about fatherhood because he’s met the driver’s polite teenage daughters.

The comic relief is a welcome palliative to the surfeit of violence that comes with hunting down the terrorists. Director McG takes great pains to create terrific action sequences, from volatile shootouts to fist fights in the Paris subway system.

Most spectacular of all, reminiscent of “Ronin,” is an incredible, breathtaking multi-car chase sequence on the streets of Paris, which culminates with Ethan crashing a car into the Seine.

Kevin Costner’s talent shines in his role as the world-weary, put-upon CIA operative grappling with family issues. He’s tough, witty, resilient and consequential. Let’s hope his Ethan Renner can be called out of retirement one more time.

Over-the-top in its thrilling action, “3 Days to Kill,” not to be taken too seriously, is unorthodox at its core but absurdly entertaining and one heck of a lot of fun.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.