London Has Fallen
Don't Go! Far too close to the bone.
Secret Service agent kills terrorists...again.
2013's Olympus Has Fallen was an action movie in the most 1980s sense of the term – boom boom, stab stab, bang bang…USA! Die Hard, reincarnated, it replaced the charming, aggrieved cynicism of the 1980s everyman-cop protagonist, John McClean (Bruce Willis), with the 21st Century arrogant invincibility of ex-secret service agent, Mike Banning (Gerard Butler). It was a kind of lovable abomination – a very American terrorist-attack-movie by numbers, with an uncomplicated adult colouring book for a script. It was inherently terrible, yet unnervingly enjoyable, largely because it had more comical daftness and fast-paced action than a stag do in Newcastle.
Where Olympus Has Fallen featured an attack on the White House, London Has Fallen…OK you can work it out. Gerard Butler is back on the President’s protection detail, but this time, his wife is pregnant and he is moments from resigning (presumably, he’s “getting too old for this s***”). Suddenly, the British Prime Minister dies and he must follow US President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart, The Dark Knight Rises) to London for the funeral. What could possibly go wrong (especially if a Pakistani terrorist/arms dealer with a sneering face is revealed to have survived a Nato-led drone strike on his family two years earlier)? Of course, absolute chaos ensues. With the President under his protection and Vice President Morgan Freeman running things across the Atlantic, Banning is chased across London in fantastical circumstances by a stream of heavily armed goons, giving him the chance to do what he so loves – murdering bad guys. USA! USA!!
The film seems to have been an attempt to save Donald Trump from needing to write a foreign policy manifesto. Simply, this is it. Banning is Trump’s one-man America; destroying terrorists one at a time while remaining an unrelenting (and borderline psychopathic) Grade-A a-hole throughout it all. His cocky, potty mouth makes John McClane sound like a Sunday School teacher, with his vocabulary not extending far beyond f***, f***ers, f***ing and f***ed. To his credit, he does invent the imaginative Central Asian state of “F***head-istan”, but that is about as intelligent as it gets. While the F-bombs rain down among the impressive special effects, Butler gets on with running a lot, driving dramatically and killing everyone who moves, by every possible means available. The circumstances, as well as Banning’s actions, unstoppable skill set and smug attitude towards death are executed with brutish commitment, but everything remains well beyond farcical. As with Olympus Has Fallen, this inherent ridiculousness creates moments of sheer (and shameful) laugh-out-loud bemusement. If Butler had yielded to the stronger side of his wobbly American accent and committed to playing Banning with his own, Glaswegian brogue, it might even have been all-the-way funny.
Nonetheless, those few mirthful moments fail to wash away the dirty feeling that this is a crass film with flawed motives. It is subtle propaganda of the most dangerous kind; particularly in light of recent, real-life terrorist attacks in major European cities. Along with regular television news outlets and TV shows such as Homeland, films like this further sensationalise terrorism, fuelling the idea that such fear and violence have a legitimate element of theatre to them, and that it is possible to derive some some excitement and heroism from the whole toxic affair.
So don’t go. It makes entertainment out of an ugly true-to-life situation and leaves a bad taste - something that even the pottiest of mouths cannot disguise.
Nonetheless, those few mirthful moments fail to wash away the dirty feeling that this is a crass film with flawed motives. It is subtle propaganda of the most dangerous kind; particularly in light of recent, real-life terrorist attacks in major European cities. Along with regular television news outlets and TV shows such as Homeland, films like this further sensationalise terrorism, fuelling the idea that such fear and violence have a legitimate element of theatre to them, and that it is possible to derive some some excitement and heroism from the whole toxic affair.
So don’t go. It makes entertainment out of an ugly true-to-life situation and leaves a bad taste - something that even the pottiest of mouths cannot disguise.
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