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A full-tilt action flick recalling the sort that used to star guys like Steven Seagal, “Olympus Has Fallen” merges old-school attitude with a chillingly modern premise, making its central crisis a terrorist takeover of the White House.
After an opening act that sees the wife of President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart) die in a car accident, a casualty that might have been prevented had Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) not been following orders to save the president first, the film leaps forward to 18 months later, then dives headfirst into a riveting attack on our nation’s foremost residence, an act that seems as outlandish as it does unnervingly simple.
Relegated to a desk job after the first lady’s death, Banning, an ex-Special Forces brute, slips past the bad guys on the ground level and winds up the nation’s last hope, while most other top officials (including the president and the secretary of defense, played by Melissa Leo) are held hostage inside 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Boasting a rather stellar ensemble, which also includes Morgan Freeman (as the speaker of the house who becomes acting president), Angela Bassett (as the head of the Secret Service), and Dylan McDermott (as a fellow Secret Service agent), “Olympus Has Fallen” is a highly watchable adventure, for its breathless pacing, its no-nonsense toughness (get ready for carnage), and its considerable tinge of dread.
But while the film, directed by Antoine Fuqua (whose sole, 12-year-old triumph, “Training Day,” is continually pushed as a promise of quality), doesn’t pretend to have the false prestige of something like “Argo,” it similarly promotes a hoo-ra, pro-America attitude that, these days, can do much more harm than good. As bad as it may be that the movie basically shows potential enemies how to take the White House, it’s even worse how viciously it demonizes North Koreans, who, through this film’s gaze, are officially the new Taliban. Right down to Banning’s insistence that the terrorists “speak English!” the film unabashedly promotes us-versus-them rage.
That might have worked in Seagal’s heyday, but in 2013, it feels awfully regressive.
Olympus Has Fallen
R
Two-and-a-half reels out of four
Opens tomorrow at area theaters
Recommended Rental
Lincoln
PG-13
Available Tuesday
One of the very best films of 2012 (and the one that should have taken home the Best Picture Oscar), Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” features excellence in just about every filmic discipline, with restrained direction from the legendary maestro, an utterly brilliant script from Tony Kushner, evocative photography and production design, an ace performances from a cast that includes Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, and, of course, lead star Daniel Day-Lewis. It may not have walked off with armfuls of trophies, but “Lincoln” should be remembered as one of the great historical biopics.
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
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