Clint Eastwood has never shied away from addressing dramatic, real-life events in his films. Eastwood directed 2014’s “American Sniper” and 2016’s “Sully,” and now he’s added another drama based off of true events to his résumé with the recent release of “The 15:17 to Paris.” The movie was released in theaters Feb. 9.

“The 15:17 to Paris” focuses on the three young American men who stopped a terrorist attack onboard a train from Amsterdam to Paris in August of 2015.

While people already know of the event that inspired “The 15:17 to Paris,” the film gave the audience the necessary background needed to truly understand what happened. The three men—Alek Skarlatos, Spencer Stone and Anthony Sadler—were childhood friends, and a substantial chunk of the film follows both the development of their friendship and why they were on the train in the first place.

Further, Skarlatos and Stone were also in the military, and the audience is able to see the training that enabled Stone to take down the terrorist and save another man’s life. Without this information, viewers would have a hard time truly understanding why things happened the way they did that day.

Eastwood is never one to stick to the status quo, which showed in his final casting choices: Stone, Skarlatos and Sadler all played themselves. The fact that none of the men are professional actors added a sense of realism to the movie that was both negative and positive.

Dialogue in movies do not usually reflect how two people talk in the real world—instead, it sounds cleaner, crisper and usually ends up creating a sense of drama. While some of “The 15:17 to Paris” moved pretty slow at times—certain scenes didn’t seem necessary—even these moments added to the film’s realism.

Instead of “playing up the drama,” the film focused on authenticity. Half of the conversations between the men were regular day-to-day conversations and when the men are awarded the Legion of Honour by the French government, the scene interchanges between real footage from the ceremony and reenactments.

Further, the fact that the events were portrayed by the actual people was refreshing to see in a movie based on true events. While movie-goers usually see a dramatic version of what really happened, Eastwood kept it relatively true to the three men’s experiences.

That said, there were a few obvious cinematic decisions to increase the movie’s drama. For instance, while the terrorist is introduced at the beginning, his face is not shown until almost half-way into the film. Further, the scenes in “The 15:17 to Paris” jump around—for example, a scene that shows a part of the climactic event is followed by a scene of the men growing up, or what led to them boarding the train.

Overall, “The 15:17 to Paris” educates audiences about a historical event and what led up to it in a fascinating way. While the elements of realism in the film may border on boring—or accentuate bad acting—the fact that the three men played themselves was what truly made this movie captivating