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Friday, March 22, 2013
MOVIE REVIEW
Olympus Has Fallen
Jingoism Bells, Jingoism Bells, Jingoism
All The Way
The White House, and United States
flag, under attack in Antoine Fuqua's action thriller "Olympus Has Fallen".
Film District
by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
FOLLOW
Friday,
March 22,
2013
Serving up red meat to the George W. Bush hawkish yahoos of 2002, "Olympus Has
Fallen" is a talisman for jingoism and Fox News Channel bombast. As
directed by Antoine Fuqua, this action-thriller is full-throttle, especially its
opening half-hour, as a July 5 terrorist attack on the White House (codename
"Olympus") unfolds, orchestrated by a Korean political faction bent on
eliminating Washington's "interference" with Korea's civil war from 60 years
ago. After an early tragedy Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Gerard
Butler) is demoted but turns into John McClane as he comes to the rescue of the
American president (Aaron Eckhart) and his cabinet held hostage in the White
House bunker.
"Olympus Has Fallen" has tense, powerful moments early on but very quickly falls
by the wayside as its superficiality and hollowness take over. The
characters, including the Speaker of the House played by Morgan Freeman, aren't
very smart. In one crisis moment, the Speaker, amidst other top government
officials, asks, "does anyone here have any intelligence on the White House?"
I wanted to say, "does anyone in this film have any intelligence?", for the
characters are a step slow and well beneath their capacities and credentials.
Scripted by Katrin Benedikt and Creighton Rothenberger, Mr. Fuqua's film will be
a boon to those who love extreme, continuous violence in their movies -- no more
than five minutes pass without a life being lost -- but for the rest of us it's
a numbing, empty experience that excessively manipulates, a full-scale assault
of a drumbeat of militaristic, bloodthirsty American revenge amidst Korean
terror. If you've seen "Contact" (with Angela Bassett, who appears here as
the head of the Secret Service), "Deep Impact" (Mr. Freeman), "Air Force One",
"Independence Day" and "Die Hard", which this film most resembles, then you've
already seen "Olympus Has Fallen" before you've seen Mr. Fuqua's film.
There's a level of propaganda in "Olympus Has Fallen" that is nauseating,
including its aforementioned jingoist heartbeat -- most notably when the defense
secretary (Melissa Leo) screams out the pledge of allegiance as she's being
dragged, bloody, along the bunker floor by the Korean terrorists led by Kang
(Rick Yune). It's a hysterical, painful, even comic moment that is as
exploitive as anything else in the film. It's sad, because the cast, as in
the recent "Dead Man Down", is an impressive assemblage of actors including
Oscar winners and nominees, all of whom do well here with dull, robotic
political or action types.
Mr. Fuqua always captures a visceral spirit and fervor in his work ("Brooklyn's
Finest", "Tears Of The Sun", "Training Day") but here there's nothing
more than Trevor Morris's overbearing music score to supplement it. I wish
that the tense opening half-hour had been buttressed by a subsequently strong
and thoughtful 90 minutes. The writers drop the ball and the director
doesn't sustain any high-wire ante in this wasteful, purposeless and poorly
written effort.
Also with: Dylan MacDermott, Robert Forster, Radha Mitchell, Ashley Judd, Finley
Jacobsen, Cole Hauser.
"Olympus Has Fallen", which opened today across the U.S. and Canada, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association Of America for
strong violence and language throughout. The film's
running time is one hour and 56 minutes.
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