Olympus Has Fallen is a Secret Service action
flick, a genre that usually has a topical political angle — after all, it’s part of the territory when guarding the US President.
So we shouldn’t be completely flabbergasted when an organized, heavily armed
group of North Korean terrorists — masquerading as South Korean
diplomats on a state visit (don’t ask) — invade the White House, shoot all
bodyguards, and take the President (Aaron Eckhart), the Secretary of State
(Melissa Leo), and a roomful of other bigwigs hostage in the secret War Room in
the basement (don’t ask), after first strafing DC civilians and knocking the
top off the Washington Monument (don’t ask).
Luckily for the nation, Secret Service man Mike Banning (Gerard
Butler) is waiting in the wings. When the invasion takes place, Banning, who
has been demoted to a desk job in the Treasury Department (don’t ask, just suffice
to say that if you come to this movie to see Ashley Judd play the First Lady,
you’d better look fast), immediately sizes up the situation and sneaks into the
smoking, corpse-strewn White House and establishes himself as the resident
phantom. His mission: save the Prez, kill the foreign
devils, stop them from detonating all of America’s nuclear missiles in their
silos (don’t ask), and thwart the dastardly North Korean plans to force the
withdrawal of all US forces from the Nor-Kor/So-Kor border. And then, after lunch ….
The chief villain is a smooth model type named Kang (K-Am actor
Rick Yune). Naturally, we have to wait until Banning
has slaughtered every other terrorist for their final confrontation. Butler and
Yune get most of the meaningful screen time in
Olympus Has Fallen. So Eckhart, Leo, Morgan Freeman (Speaker of the House — can
we please make this reality?), and Angela Bassett (Banning’s SS boss) have
little to do except look mortified. Director Antoine Fuqua just winds it up and
sets it loose. They even trash the Lincoln Bedroom. Butler looks as comfortable
throttling goons as he did coaching kids’ soccer in Playing for Keeps. Look at
it this way — rebuilding the White House will provide hundreds of jobs for
Americans. Just be sure to never let in any more foreign security guards with
shoulder-length hair. Any kid could spot him as a baddie.
