London Has Fallen

For F*** Magazine

LONDON HAS FALLEN

Director : Babak Najafi
Cast : Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Charlotte Riley, Morgan Freeman, Robert Forster, Melissa Leo, Alon Moni Aboutboul, Angela Bassett, Radha Mitchell
Genre : Action/Thriller
Run Time : 99 mins
Opens : 3 March 2016
Rating : NC-16 (Violence And Some Coarse Language)

The city of London: between being decimated by a tungsten rod fired from orbit in G.I. Joe: Retaliation and having Dubai’s Burj Khalifa plonked down on it by aliens in the upcoming Independence Day: Resurgence, it seems Hollywood’s been saying “screw Britannia!” Another round of U.K. landmark destruction is preceded by the untimely death of the British Prime Minister. World leaders, including U.S. President Benjamin Asher (Eckhart), arrive for the state funeral. In the lead-up to the funeral, a brutal, intricately-planned terrorist attack cripples London, and Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Butler) is the only thing keeping Asher alive. Back in Washington D.C., Vice President Alan Trumbull (Freeman) receives a video message from terrorist mastermind Aamir Barkawi (Aboutboul), claiming responsibility for the attacks. Asher and Banning have to rendezvous with MI6 agent Jacquelin Marshal (Riley) as the chaos escalates and terrorists overrun London.

            London Has Fallen is the sequel to Olympus Has Fallen, a film that was generally regarded as taking itself way too seriously, hilariously jingoistic, containing slipshod visual effects work but boasting a decent amount of brutal action. London Has Fallen contains all those traits and kicks them up to 11. There’s an increased sense of scale and the location shooting in London itself means the production values here are an improvement on those of its predecessor. However, in scenes including the destruction of Chelsea Bridge and a sequence in which the presidential helicopters Marines One, Two and Three are evading terrorists’ rockets, the visual effects work is nigh laughable.  

The over-the-top bombast is supposed to be thrilling, but there will be many audiences who will have a difficult time deriving entertainment from seeing terrorists blow up a city, particularly given the tragic frequency with which such incidents occur in real life. Paris, Beirut, Tunis, Istanbul, San Bernadino and Jakarta amongst others were all recently attacked and furthermore, the trailer for London Has Fallen was released during the week of the tenth anniversary of the 2005 7/7 London bombings. We don’t mean to get all self-righteous and this reviewer is a big action movie junkie, but the way London Has Fallen presents itself as topical while revelling in dated action movie tropes, with a one-man army stabbing bad guys and dispensing one-liners, is a little uncomfortable.

It’s pretty funny that this flag-waving, chest-thumping celebration of American jingoism is directed by a Swedish director of Iranian descent and stars an actor who is completely incapable of disguising his unmistakably Scottish brogue. As far as London Has Fallen is concerned, all world leaders are entirely expendable – ersatz versions of Angela Merkel, Silvio Berlusconi and François Hollande bite the dust in quick succession – all except for the American president, of course. The primary villain, a Middle-Eastern arms dealer, seems like a C-grade reject from the TV series Homeland. And yes, drone strikes are a plot point, because total predictability is the name of the game here. At the very least, the villainous scheme is an order of magnitude more plausible than that of the North Korean baddies in Olympus Has Fallen, though that’s still not saying much.

Butler and Eckhart lead a good number of actors who reprise their roles from Olympus Has Fallen. Sure, Butler is completely unbelievable as an American, but he and Eckhart develop a watchable buddy chemistry and Butler’s rough-around-the-edges quality makes him easier to buy as an old-school action hero than other actors out there. Many attempts at badass quips simply come off as silly, but the guy looks like he knows what he’s doing when he’s firing a gun. Bassett isn’t in much of the film and Freeman, Forster and Leo simply sit around the Situation Room back at the White House; their scenes looking like they were all filmed in one day. Jackie Earle Haley as the White House Deputy Chief of Staff is puzzling casting, since the actor isn’t allowed to display any of the quirky energy he’s known for. Riley’s MI6 agent could’ve been a scene stealing character, but God forbid anyone other than Butler kick a significant amount of ass.

Is London Has Fallen enjoyable at all? Yes. It’s fun to guffaw at the clunky lines of dialogue, to appreciate some of the action sequences for being well-executed and others for looking hilariously phony and to pretend that it’s still the 80s-90s, cheering on the clench-jawed hero who charges in guns a-blazing. The clichés are so on-the-nose – for example, Banning’s wife Leah (Mitchell) is pregnant with their first child, pining for the safe return of her husband – it’s impossible to assume the filmmakers didn’t go into this with at least the slightest modicum of self-awareness. Most of all, it’s enjoyable in its thunderous stupidity and those 99 minutes go by fairly quickly.

Summary: This action thriller is often breathtakingly dumb and the “terrorist attacks in the name of entertainment” angle is problematic in this day and age, but the sheer lack of subtlety is enjoyable in its own right. U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A!

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

Olympus Has Fallen

For F*** Magazine, Singapore

OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN 

Director: Antoine Fuqua
Cast:         Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Melissa Leo, Rick Yune
Genre: Action, Drama
Run Time: 119 mins
Opens: 11 April 2013
Rating: NC16

Terrorists have overtaken the White House and held the President hostage?

“This is blasphemy! This is madness!”

“Madness? THIS! IS! WASHINGTON!”

Gerard Butler plays Mike Banning, formerly the head of the security detail for United States President Benjamin Asher (Eckhart). An incident in the film’s opening minutes forces Banning to leave the President’s side, but his more mundane existence working at the Treasury Department is rocked by a vicious surprise attack on 1600 Penn. The attack is spearheaded by the ruthless terrorist Kang Yeonsak (Yune), who has disguised himself as a member of the South Korean delegation to Washington. With the President and Vice-President indisposed, Speaker of the House Allan Trumbull (Freeman) takes on the mantle of acting Commander in Chief, and Banning is the only man he and the others in the Pentagon can trust. It’s Secret Service Agent Leonidas to the rescue.

It’s the general consensus among genre fans that action films aren’t quite what they used to be. Well, if you’re nostalgic for the likes of Under Siege, Executive Decision and of course Air Force One, Olympus Has Fallen will probably sate that appetite. Director Antoine Fuqua has delivered an old-school action thriller that isn’t restrained by a “PG-13” rating and can let loose with the gunfire, the bloodshed and some swearing for good measure. The “Die Hard on an X” formula seems to have fallen out of favour with the Hollywood powers that be – even the last three Die Hard films themselves didn’t have John McClane stuck in a confined space. But here, the trope is in full effect, with the one-man Special Forces team that is Mike Banning trapped in the besieged White House.

However, there’s probably good reason that filmmakers have edged away from such plotlines, mainly because we’ve seen it all before. Replace the North Korean villains with Middle-Eastern ones and you just might believe this was released in 1994. Unfortunately, the sub-par visual effects, especially in the opening aerial assault, make it look that way too, hurting that potentially harrowing sequence. The action flicks of the 90s may have been more subdued than those of the preceding decade, but they were often cliché-riddled and had their fair share of implausibilities to get around – as is the case here. Apparently, wanted terrorists can infiltrate the higher echelons of South Korean government, thus gaining access to one of the most-protected buildings in the world, evading every last background check along the way. There’s also a Secret Service agent who has turned traitor with the flimsiest excuse.

It is to Fuqua’s credit then that this reviewer was more often than not willing to overlook such contrivances. The director manages to keep the tension at a consistently high ebb, and in spite of the odd silly moment and the afore-mentioned bad visual effects work, the movie never falls into abject silliness. This is also thanks to Butler, in his element as the protagonist with a gun in his hand, a chip on his shoulder and clad in “plot armour” (enemy armies can fire endlessly at him but he’ll still live) like the action heroes of yore. He clearly should be doing more of this and less playing for keeps and dispensing ugly truths.

While there isn’t much in the way of characterisation to keep the action going, the supporting cast is top-notch. An action flick like this may not be the best use of their talents, but it benefits from their presence anyway. Freeman is not required to do much other than take charge and have terse conversations with Banning over the radio, but darn if he isn’t cool as always doing it. With his lantern jaw, gritted teeth and blue eyes, Eckhart embodies the archetypical “all-American Prez” image. As the supervillain, Rick Yune is nowhere near the likes of Gary Oldman or Tommy Lee Jones, but gets the job done as our two-dimensional force of evil.

Yes, Olympus Has Fallen is brutal, exciting and has its share of white-knuckle moments, but its old-school 90s action flick pedigree is often a double-edged sword, as audiences have come to expect something with perhaps a little more sophistication. Still, the film is enjoyably earnest, a throwback without the smart-alecky winks and nudges and there’s Gerard Butler taking names and kicking ass. Just not down bottomless wells.

SUMMARY: An action thriller right out the 90s. Straightforward, rough around the edges and it isn’t the pinnacle (or Mount Olympus, as it were) of action flicks, but it’s entertaining and intense where it counts.

RATING: 3 out of 5 STARS

Jedd Jong