So it’s time for a good old fashioned American action film starring a few respectable actors who hopefully aren’t in this film just for a paycheque. I knew little about this movie except that one of my friends called it the best Die Hard film which isn’t actually a Die Hard film’, so let’s see how it holds up.
Right off the bat we see the films titles over an American flag and we hear generic patriotic action music (see Armageddon (1998), or any American military film of the last 20 years). To be fair, this is an all-American action movie so get over it.
Our protagonist Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) is a Secret Service agent assigned to Presidential Duty for President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart). We are introduced to them boxing each other at Camp David. Yes, this is a manly film. However a tragic accident occurs and 18 months later Banning is demoted to a desk job and things aren’t right at home. The president of South Korea visits the White House and, you’ve guessed it, North Koreans attack and take control (code: Olympus has Fallen, I love it when someone says the name of the film you’re watching), and Banning has to use his deadly skills and in-depth knowledge of the building to infiltrate, rescue the President and his son, and basically be a one man army to bring down the terrorists, redeem himself and save the day.
Now there’s no denying that this film is entertaining, but I felt that it tries to be many different things tonally which makes it a bit muddled: is it a drama? A political thriller? Or just a mindless action movie?
The scenes played out for pure drama and backstory are effective to set up the turmoil of our main characters, but this is largely redundant when juxtaposed to the bigger picture: terrorists are in the White House! On the political side of things Morgan Freeman plays Morgan Freeman (see Jack Nicolson) as Speaker Trumbull, who is made acting president and has to cope with some difficult choices especially against the stereotypical General Clegg. They later communicate with Banning who is their eyes in the White House, with predictable results and conflict against authority.
This leads us to the action, which is pretty good. This film is brutal and isn’t afraid to shy away from gore or violence, but does not reach the levels of Rambo (2008). There are some innovative deaths and these aspects of the film are in the vein of the Reaganite cinema of the 1980’s (see Commando (1985), Rambo: First Blood Part 2 (1985)) where Banning is an unstoppable killing machine great at dispatching wave after wave of faceless villains, and surviving where other specialist trained’ agents literally run out into the firing line.
One thing that I found harrowing, and I’m glad this film showed, is the effects and aftermath of a merciless attack on innocent bystanders with some heavy artillery. When we usually see people get shot in films its ok as they are mainly the bad guys, yet this barbaric-ness really hits home the senselessness of war and its victims, and the filmmakers make use of this to tug on the audience’s emotions in a post 911 world. As an audience, this means war and the bad guys must pay!
Ultimate though, the film is a mixed bag effects the pacing, but if you’re into your action the this is a thoroughly enjoyable film, and I bet you right now that this will be better than the upcoming destroy-o-fest that is Roland Emmerich’s White House Down (2013).
Olympus Has Fallen is in the vein of a mid-90’s Jerry Bruckheimer production: The Rock (1996), Con Air (1997), Enemy of the State (1998) etc.. It delivers spectacle, countless deaths, the same soundtrack, similar cinematography and an overbearing sense of American patriotism and the lone hero against the odds. Granted that this film is set at the White House and deals with terrorist kidnapping the President, but it doesn’t reach levels of overbearing American preachy-ness of some other films.
As far as the acting goes there’s little to fault, at least for this kind of film. Gerard Butler seems to be the go-to guy for sensitive yet burly action heroes and he does a good job with what he has to work with. I like Aaron Eckhart in everything I’ve seen him in and he plays a convincing President, whilst getting to do his trademark growl at every given opportunity. Rick Yune’s performance as the villainous Kang is great. He carries the complexity of an intelligent and ruthless man and obviously had a lot of fun in the role. Dylan McDermott is the familiar face that you can’t place until you go to IMDB, but his fairly wooden and stereotypical performance gave away a plot device, and as such I didn’t care for the character as his actions became predictable. Oh well, I’ll blame that on the script.
The movie borrows and blends elements from other successful action films, which as a viewer just reminded me of the films where it’s done better (the hollow wall scene in The Raid (2011)). Events are predictable even when they try to throw in a few twists and surprises, but as an audience we all know how this film will end!
Some of the classic’ dialogue reinforces just how American this film is, for example:
Banning: These sons of bitches are pretty f@#king tough.
General Clegg: I’ve got the toughest f@#king guys in the world!
This does nothing but invoke America! F@#k yeah!’ in my head. However there are a lot of humorous and witty one-liners that bring a welcome sense of humour to the film and stops it from being an over-ambitious cheese fest.
Olympus Has Fallen in formulaic but it kept me entertained right up to its muddled and slightly anti-climactic ending. As I’ve stated before this film struggles to find its tone and that’s its ultimate downfall. Its opening is harrowing drama, the invasion of the White House is thrilling and I enjoyed Banning disobeying orders and dispatching countless villains throughout, although his motive to try and redeem his past hit a flat note.
The payoff is limp and the greater thing at stake’ has no impact as it seemed rushed, predictable and secondary to the main story. Granted, the film quite tense in parts with some great action scenes, but even they become more corny, clichéd and predictable towards the end.
I was surprised with the wealth of extras on the disk as most DVDs are vanilla these days. We have a fun Gag Reel’, and there a The Epic Ensemble’ Featurette, which talks about the incredible’ cast and reveals that Gerard Butler executively produced this film and immediately thought of director Antoine Fuqua. There’s also plenty of clips of everyone involved praising each other. The Making of Olympus Has Fallen’ is your standard promotional short with clips and interviews, which sheds some light on the film’s production, and how the director created a cautionary tale of how this could realistically happen’. It also shows that the logistics of the attack were well thought out and realised.
Deconstructing the Black Hawk Sequence’ reveals that most of this scene was CG and the featurette itself is rather pointless, much like Ground Combat: Fighting the Terrorists’, which only slightly delves into the choreography of some action sequences. Lastly we have Creating the Action: VFX and Design’, which is an interesting insight into how much CGI was used in the film.
Overall Verdict: This is a genuinely exciting if very predictable action thriller, Ultimately the unsuccessful blend of tones and the corny ending let it down. At points it is a 4 star film but as a whole it’s a 3. Still, I bet this will be better than White House Down (2013).
Reviewer: George Elcombe