Secret Service Agent Mike Banning is framed for the attempted assassination of the President and must evade his own agency and the FBI as he tries to uncover the real threat.
I thoroughly enjoyed “Olympus Has Fallen,” it came out the same year as “White House Down” with Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx and it blew that movie out of the water. I have always enjoyed Roland Emmerich’s films but WHD was, in my opinion, his first major bomb. Director Antoine Fuqua’s deft direction, elaborate setpieces, and relatable characters, even in the face of such unbelievable odds, is why “Olympus Has Fallen” was the frontrunner. Naturally, because it was a big hit, Lionsgate summoned a sequel and “London Has Fallen” was born and while it was enjoyable, in parts, it failed to live up to the excitement its predecessor possessed. When I saw the trailer for “Angel Has Fallen,” it looked so generic and clichéd I seriously thought about passing on it, it felt like an updated version of “The Fugitive” or “Shooter,” with the reluctant hero being framed for a crime he didn’t commit only to escape and have to prove his innocence. But boy am I glad I saw it, this movie is right up there beside “Olympus Has Fallen” it and puts “London Has Fallen” to shame. It is exciting, inventive, and genuinely thrilling and offers some great repartee between Gerard Butler and Nick Nolte, his onscreen father, occasionally bringing to mind the constant bickering between Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones and his dad, played by Sean Connery in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.”
When Mike Banning (Butler) is promoted to the head of the Secret Service by President Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman), he is delighted with the advancement but when he accompanies the president on a fishing trip out of the city, they are attacked by a cloud of drones and while Trumbull and Banning survive, every other member of the Secret Service is killed. When Banning wakes up in the hospital handcuffed to his bed, he demands to know what’s going on. With the president in a coma, FBI Agent Helen Thompson (Jada Pinkett Smith) informs him that his fingerprints were found in a van not far from the attack site which housed the control center for the drones and with no way of proving his innocence, he is charged with treason and taken away to a secure facility. On his way there, his convoy is attacked and everyone is killed, except for him. When masked men come to take him away instead of shooting him, he realizes he has been set up and manages to overpower them and escape. With nowhere to go and no one he can turn to, he reluctantly travels to the backwoods of West Virginia to seek help from the one person he knows he can trust but never thought he’d see again…his father, Clay Banning (Nick Nolte).
Clay fought in the Vietnam War and suffers from PTSD but he still has his wits about him and when a platoon of soldiers come to his house later that evening, Clay blows them all to pieces utilizing hidden explosives laid all around his property, much to Mike’s surprise. Buying them some time, Mike realizes that the only way he can save the president from another impending attack is to turn himself in and prove his innocence directly to the president but with every major branch of the US government looking for him, he sets out for one final mission that he simply cannot fail!
As predicted from the trailer, “Angel Has Fallen” makes no apologies for resembling “The Fugitive” and “Shooter” but director Ric Roman Waugh, who helmed the impressive but violent “Shot Caller,” here knows when to utilize violence for shock’s sake and for good old fashioned excitement. The absolute standout here is Nick Nolte, an actor I have long admired and who I always felt was very underrated. When it surfaces that he left Mike and his mother when Mike was just a kid, Clay takes control of the situation by informing Mike he did it for their own good, not because he wanted to but because his PTSD had completely taken him over and he didn’t want to put them through the hell he went through in Vietnam. While Mike tries to argue that he should have stayed, regardless, Clay disagrees, saying it was the hardest choice he ever had to make. Nolte performs these scenes with the look of a man who has been to hell and back and I found myself tearing up at his veracity but also his vulnerability. The much-needed drama is expertly handled by director Waugh and is inserted into the movie at just the right moments, allowing us enough time to find out a little more about Mike’s past, only to then have the bad guys turn up and blow everything to hell.
The entire cast handles their respective roles most assuredly, with Nolte predominantly shining through but once everything comes to a head and bad guys are put in their place, and good guys rise once more, you realize that these three movies, while enjoyable, have pretty much run their course, and it is time for Mike Banning and his family to sail off into the sunset, once and for all.
Available on 4K Ultra HD™ Combo Pack (plus Blu-ray and Digital), Blu-ray™ Combo Pack (plus DVD and Digital), DVD, and On-Demand November 26th
