There was once a time, before political correctness ruined so many things, when bad guys had accents, and the good guys dropped F-bombs as they doled out punishment and revenge on those who have transgressed on our way of life. A time when ridiculous explosions and implausible plots were the centerpiece of films, and not even human sensibilities, or sensitivities could stop the action onscreen. This was a time when men would go to the theaters and root for each kill, each explosion, each cheesy one liner, and at the end, they would applaud unapologetically from their seats.
Olympus Has Fallen is a throw back to that time, and it is in your face fun and excitement for 120 minutes with a no-holds-barred underline that says “F#$@ You if you don’t like it. THIS IS AMERICA!”
Gerard Butler (300, too many RomComs to mention) stars as Mike Banning, a secret service agent who, on a cold, snowy night, made a choice that still haunts him; a choice that soured his once close relationship with his most important detail, U.S. President Ben Asher (Aaron Eckhart, The Dark Knight). Now, 18 months later, Banning works in the U.S. Treasury, sitting at a desk investigating counterfeiting and fraud instead of escorting and protecting the most important man (and his family) in the world.
When tensions between the Koreas rise, a South Korean delegate comes to Washington to seek help from President Asher and that opens the door (figuratively and literally) for an offshoot Korean terrorist organization to attack the White House and kidnap the president and his closest staff, including the Secretary of Defense (Melissa Leo, Treme, The Fighter) and set up operations inside the bunker beneath the executive mansion. Luckily for us, Mike Banning is able to get across the street to the White House as the attack starts and get inside before the terrorists cut off the famous building (code named: Olympus, if you haven’t figured that out) from the outside world.
What follows is the best Die Hard movie since, well, Die Hard. Banning, who knows the building inside and out, is able to sneak around and kill the terrorists from the shadows and secret hideaway spaces that Harry S. Truman famously added to the mansion in the ’40s. Banning is able to get to the president’s sat phone link up in the Oval Office, which puts him in contact with the Speaker of the House, Allen Trumbull (Morgan Freeman), who is now acting President of the United States, and the Head of the Joint Chiefs (Robert Forster, Jackie Brown, The Descendants) and the Head of the Secret Service (Angela Bassett, What’s Love Got To Do With It?, Green Lantern). With a line of communication to the offsite war room, Banning tries to first save the president’s son, Connor (Finley Jacobsen) and later the president himself, all the while punishing those who have attacked our leader.
Butler’s Banning is a badass in every throwback way. He pulls off violent headshots as if playing on the rookie skill level in a Call of Duty game, and his work with a knife and his fists easily, and quickly, evens the numbers. Butler is hulking on screen and his presence just makes the audience feel like he is the one that will win the day. Banning even has some spirited banter with the head terrorist, Kang (Rick Yune, Ninja Assassin, Die Another Day), promising that when this was all said and done, Banning would put a knife in Kang’s skull. Yune is perfect as the leader of the attacking forces. His natural smug look and slick, always-in-control persona is the perfect foil to Butler’s one-man-destruction team. And watching these two work against each other is fun.
Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, Shooter) is the perfect choice to direct Olympus Has Fallen. He carefully crafts the story written by Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt to the point of sheer ludicrousness, and then pulls back to reveal levels of complexity and humanity before doing it again, and again. It’s masterful how he is able to squeeze out emotions from the audience, as the group I saw the film with cheered each bad guy’s demise, and I could hear gasping and actual voiced anger at some of the scenes of destruction on our nation’s capital. Fuqua played this audience like a piano, and is poised to do more of the same when the film opens wide.
Olympus Has Fallen is not going to win any awards for Best Picture. The acting is good, not great (Butler is serviceable, at best, and the Academy Award-level actors always deliver, even in a film like this), but it works for this movie and this production. Olympus Has Fallen is essentially a rousing, patriotic throwback to a time when Chuck Norris went back to Vietnam to save our POWs and Sly Stallone fought the Soviet Russians single-handedly with a headband, a big knife, and an RPG held at his side as opposed to on his shoulder. It is violent to the point of pornography, but again, it fits this movie and judging by the reactions of the audience I was with, was very well received.
Olympus Has Fallen is rated R (and it earns every bit of the rating) and opens nationwide on March 22, 2013.
