As befitting a brazen '90s throwback, America
and its allies are presented as being on the side of undeniable right, while
their terrorist opponents are slandered as savages hailing from
“Fuckhead-istan” circumstances that render any potential political commentary
coarse and one-note.
As with 'Olympus,' 'London' is akin to an indelicate, more
vicious riff on “Air Force One,” with the Commander-in-Chief relegated to a
damsel in distress Eckhart’s Asher does
more fighting this time around, but he’s still ultimately in need of rescuing
and America’s finest military man, Banning, envisioned as a noble macho deity.
Of course, Barkawi seeks payback,
and it comes two years later, when the British prime minister suddenly dies and
the West’s leaders including American president Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart)
are summoned to London for his funeral. Tagging along with Asher is his trusty
protector Mike Banning (Gerard Butler), a secret service superhero who’s
presently deciding whether to retire so he can spend more time bullet-proofing
his baby-to-be’s nursery. Loyal, caring, and funny, Banning is also a ruthless,
take-no-prisoners agent in a distinct Schwarzenegger/Stallone mold.
Thus, when Barkawi’s men
orchestrate an astounding series of coordinated bombings that kill England,
France, Italy, Germany and Japan’s heads of state, as well as put Asher in
immediate peril, he shifts from being a
jokey right-hand man to a righteous
angel of death.
Taking over for 'Olympus' helmer
Antoine Fuqua, director Babak Najafi competently stages his shootouts and
hand-to-hand combat, the former chockablock with instances of Banning putting
bullets in his opponents’ foreheads, and the latter often concluding with
Banning’s knife being repeatedly being plunged into nameless foes’ necks and
torsos.
There’s a visceral forcefulness
to his staging that does much to enliven what are rather standard-issue
conflicts, highlighted by a prolonged single-take (seemingly enhanced by CG
trickery) down a city street in which his camera maneuvers in and out of
gunfire, twirling around to provide 360-degree views of the carnage. Though
sloppier and more monotonous, “London Has Fallen” ups its precursor’s ante in
terms of gratuitous violence, not to mention foul-mouthed dialogue, such that
Banning after a particularly hectic skirmish greets a glass of water with “I am
thirsty as FUCK.”
Butler’s gruff manliness helps
sell his character’s increasingly ludicrous feats of one-against-many homicidal
heroism. And though the script (by Creighton Rothenberger, Katrin Benedikt,
Chad St. John and Christian Gudegast) fails to give him an unforgettably cheesy
kiss-off line, his alternately brusque and sarcastic retorts continue to mark
him as a serviceable descendant of John McClane.
While Banning and Asher rampage
through London’s streets in search of a safe haven, Morgan Freeman (as the Vice
President) and a host of other notable faces (Melissa Leo, Robert Forster,
J
ackie Earl Haley) sit around a command center debating tactics — and talking
to their English counterparts, located in some other room filled with computer
monitors. Those scenes may function as narrative connective tissue, but they’re
drearily irrelevant, given that Banning is an unstoppable force of
counter-terrorism nature wholly capable of handling things on his own.
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