London Has Fallen
Directed by: Babak Najafi
Written by: Creighton Rothenberger & Katrin Benedikt and Christian Gudegast and Chad St. John
Starring: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Alan Moni Aboutboul, Angela Bassett, Robert Forster, Jackie Earle Haley, Melissa Leo, Radha Mitchell, Sean O'Bryan, Charlotte Riley, Waleed F. Zuaiter, Colin Salmon
Action/Crime/Thriller - 99 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 1 Mar 2016
Written by: Creighton Rothenberger & Katrin Benedikt and Christian Gudegast and Chad St. John
Starring: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Alan Moni Aboutboul, Angela Bassett, Robert Forster, Jackie Earle Haley, Melissa Leo, Radha Mitchell, Sean O'Bryan, Charlotte Riley, Waleed F. Zuaiter, Colin Salmon
Action/Crime/Thriller - 99 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 1 Mar 2016
London Has Fallen employs more current events to motivate its villains than predecessor Olympus Has Fallen chose to. Right off the bat, an armed remotely piloted aircraft launches a missile at a nefarious arms dealer in Pakistan. What the shooter back in the states does not know is it is during the man’s daughter’s wedding. Later on, a young girl walks up to the German Chancellor at Buckingham Palace with a flower. You may forgive the Chancellor’s security detail for approaching the girl considering many of the recent suicide bombers Boko Haram uses in Nigeria are girls. Stepping out on the international stage is a big leap for an action series focused on one Secret Service agent. London Has Fallen noses ahead of its 2013 older sibling in imagination, but at the end of the day, it is a one man against the world big bang shoot ‘em up coated with shades of political philosophy.
The British Prime Minister is dead and the world leaders must show face at the funeral. President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart, I, Frankenstein), throwing around words such as “oldest ally”, hops aboard Air Force One with Mike Banning (Gerard Butler, Gods of Egypt), our hero from the last film, and Secret Service Director Lynne Jacobs (Angela Bassett), to pay his respects. Why on Earth the Director of the Secret Service would accompany the President on a trip and even hitch a ride in his car to the cathedral is not addressed; let’s just say, President Obama’s Secret Service Director stays in D.C.
The British Prime Minister is dead and the world leaders must show face at the funeral. President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart, I, Frankenstein), throwing around words such as “oldest ally”, hops aboard Air Force One with Mike Banning (Gerard Butler, Gods of Egypt), our hero from the last film, and Secret Service Director Lynne Jacobs (Angela Bassett), to pay his respects. Why on Earth the Director of the Secret Service would accompany the President on a trip and even hitch a ride in his car to the cathedral is not addressed; let’s just say, President Obama’s Secret Service Director stays in D.C.
Almost immediately, all hell breaks loose. Men dressed as police officers being shooting the crowd, a delivery man with a handy grenade launcher pins the President by his car, and sooner than you would guess, a good handful of world leaders are assassinated through various mechanisms. It appears our Pakistani arms dealer from earlier survived the drone strike, as did his sons, and they used their extensive logistical acumen to plan the world’s sneakiest head of state shooting gallery. I can dive into how implausible most of their methods are, but I get it, we’re here to have fun and watch Gerard Butler kill some people, not poke at the plot holes.
Banning and President Asher are on their own in central London with what appears to be every hired terrorist in Europe trying to kill them. Back in D.C., Vice President Trumbull (Morgan Freeman, Ted 2) has an important job to do. He and his crack staff of Cabinet Secretaries and national security advisors must consistently look incredulous, react to video monitors, and deliver calm, but calculated, pronouncements about the future of the world. In fact, all the D.C. scenes were shot in England while all of the England scenes were shot in Bulgaria; how’s that for globalization?
London Has Fallen is director Babak Najafi’s first major Hollywood film as he takes over for Antoine Fuqua. The different stars in different locations issue, which should be invisible to the audience, is quite noticeable as Morgan Freeman and Gerard Butler have a conversation in the hallway right outside the Oval Office. It is obvious Freeman and Butler weren’t even in the same room as the cuts alternate back and forth on close-ups of their faces and an obvious Freeman body double walks away later. For what was a reported $105 million budget, the audience should not notice amateur hour framing and blocking.
The close-in hand to hand combat is ultra-violent; this is no PG-13 cartoon violence. Mike Banning uses his combat knife to pry intel out of bad guys’ torsos and jugular veins. Unfortunately, Banning is also saddled with some cliché backstory. Of course his nervous wife back home (Radha Mitchell) is nine months pregnant and due any day now. Writing partners Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt, who also authored the first film, wrote The Expendables 3, a franchise dedicated to honoring cliché as much as possible. London Has Fallen may be accused for being impossible, but at least an AC-130 doesn’t shoot two F-22s out of the sky this time.
The political and arms dealer terrorist angles lend the film a bit more gravitas than just angry North Koreans from last time. Current U.S. drone warfare policy is frequently front page news, but don’t worry action/thriller aficionados, the film doesn’t debate the ins and outs of airborne morality, it’s merely a plot device to piss off the bad guys. To Najafi’s credit, the lead up to the attack and its first phase are suspenseful and effective. However, following our hero and his President play hide and seek in and around London for the rest of the film slips into silly sometimes rather than sober. In this rare example, the sequel just outdrives the first film.
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