London Has Fallen (2016)
Having watched and mostly enjoyed (with the inevitable suspension of disbelief) the sister film 'Olympus has Fallen' I had the chance to watch this over in the states. Assuming another dose of suspension of disbelief, I settled down to watch it.
This film, despite its good lead cast appears to have left the brains of plot and due process behind as it made the leap across the pond.
Set in London which is gleefully smashed up within the first 30mins of the movie along with most of the global heads of state it puts action scenes over plot devices (not that I was expected anything else) but there are some concerning portrayals of real life characters which undermine any amount of nice explosions and gun-play.
The heads of state are all archaic stereotypes of what we assume to be the culture of each country rolled into one person.
For instance, the Italian PM has a young 30-year-old-love who he meets in secrete atop Westminster Abbey. The Canadian President has the perfect family. The French President is conducting some kind of important state business in a kind of renaissance launcher boat on the Thames replete with Champagne (did he really use it to get from Paris to London?) and the Japenese PM is stoically quiet, patient and reserved until the moment when the Thames Bridge is blown up around him. Of course the US President is portrayed as a hip, fashionable humane and judicious man with none of these stereotypes (negative or otherwise).
This marks the first concern - outside of their own nation, Hollywood really does not care how these cosmopolitan characters are portrayed - indeed - entire nations are mercilessly the subject of stereotypical derision as the hapless heads of state are killed in creative manners. Not that I mind red London buses being the unprinted cue for 'this film is set in London'.
What happens next is even more incredible. Since the 'assassination' of the British PM, with the exception of some kind of funeral planning meeting early on, there does not seem to be any kind of UK government / leadership / disaster management faculty left. Rather than employ characters from real life counterparts like 'deputy PM' or 'Defense Secretary' or 'COBRA' or indeed our intelligence services like MI5 the film leads us to believe the the job of bringing order to this chaos falls to a Chief Inspector who thinks that yanks is still an acceptable term for our American cousins. (He is not even a Chief Constable though confusingly he does have chief constable epaulet rank badges) of London's Scotland Yard. Really - the entire intelligence and counter-terrorism effort. (This would be akin to a police captain in the WDCPD mopping up after a similar event took out the President of the US, though we know of course in Hollywood this could never happen).
We have Morgan Freeman as Vice President giving strong suggestions (read: orders?) over some kind of skype thing to this Chief Inspecter who enacts his word like some kind of servile unthinking amoeba.
Even our army is portrayed by a portly old man wearing something from the dad's army set who dares to suggest a military response but is denied this by Morgan Freeman and sheepishly accepts this reprimand.
At some point the President asks to be shot by Banning should he fall into the hands of the terrorists. Of course as soon as this is heard we know that the president is going to fall into the hands of the terrorists and is undoubtedly going to be rescued again. This removes any anticipation of plot from the film and leaves the rest of it as mere action-porn than anything else.
Other issues such as the NSA revealing that they have been spying on a London address for ages and the mindless insertion of armed foreign nationals on the streets of London are too numerous to mention.
Should Aaron be re-elected for a third term in something like 'Paris has Fallen' then I think I might have to go back to watching nature documentaries on UK Gold to sate my action thirst. Beast hunting beast in the great oceans would have more twists and turns than this film.
A bland, obtuse and frankly disturbing revelation of how Hollywood regards the rest of the world should be portrayed against the might and absolute 'good' of the USA. How arrogant, patronising and disgusting.
Director: Babak Najafi
Writers: Creighton Rothenberger (screenplay), Katrin Benedikt (screenplay) | 6 more credits »
Stars: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman |
Plot Keywords: good versus evil | evil man | mole | sequel | president | See All (393) »
Taglines: Prepare for bloody hell. See more »
Genres: Action | Crime | Drama | Thriller
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