Director: Antoine Fuqua.
Starring: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Finley Jacobsen, Dylan McDermott, Rick Yune, Angela Bassett, Melissa Leo, Radha Mitchell, Cole Hauser, Robert Forster, Ashley Judd.
Running Time: 120 minutes.
Certificate: 15.
Synopsis: Disgraced former Presidential guard Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) finds himself trapped inside the White House in the wake of a terrorist attack. Using his inside knowledge, Banning works with national security to rescue the President (Aaron Eckhart) from his kidnappers.
OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN is clearly a celebration of the core constitutional values of the USA, but make no mistake, it is not a sanitised and sweetened slice of Americana. Instead, the plot honours the human hands and hearts that helped build a nation out of bricks and mortar, blood, sweat and tears. A film crafted via the parallels of choice, relationships and kinship, we are drawn into a subtle maze of psychological warfare that sees our Theseus, Mike Banning, set against a nuclear-armed Minotaur.
Toying with the notion of opposites and convergence, the selfless acts of burly Banning set against a nation divided by ideology prove pivotal to the plot, especially in the Yuletide opening sequence that involves the presidential cohort in an horrific motor accident. However, the film doesn’t allow for grief or sustained reflection and we are rapidly propelled into a massacre of blood, shell punctured corpses, bullet-strewn flags and a disturbing flirtation with graphic violence. We inhabit a media driven society saturated with the constant reminder of threats from terrorism, and when the knife touches the neck of one official, the gore and brutality in the blade’s reflection is all too real.
As the title of the film suggests, the descent of a civilisation is created right from the opening shot, with the camera panning over the treetops like an American eagle descending over Camp David. With civilian blood smeared on both sides, Morgan Freeman gives a very strong performance as the calm Speaker Trumbull, deploying his troops with skill and precision with the fearless Banning guiding his decisions to salvage President Benjamin Asher’s son and the nation he serves.
Succeeding in totally demystifying the impenetrable glory of those up on Capitol Hill, OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN offers a very real representation of war, post-9/11. Using such pervasive and visceral imagery, Fuqua has created an exemplary piece of cinema which entertains, stimulates, shocks and stirs during its 120 minutes of gratuitous, unrelenting violence. Generating an authentic communication between screen and spectator, boundaries are challenged and, as it revolves around an ultimatum set by ex-North Korean terrorist Kang Yeonsak (Rick Yune), the film really serves to question our internalised fears.
With all eyes on the current escalating international crisis and flexing of nuclear arms, this film is compelling in its relevance to our present reality, and uses it as a platform to raise some appropriate questions about the boundaries of art and the role of cinema.
OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN is released in UK cinemas on April 17th.
