Olympus Has Fallen

A black man with the French last name of Fuqua? The cynic in me wants to shout out“Get real! Your real last name is Franklin!” But that would just be hating on him because I know that dude got a ton of women based off the fact that he played college basketball at West Virginia AND he’s part French, so he got every flavor of groupie that he could possibly want. It helped too that his parents gave him a little street cred with the ghetto first name of Antoine. 

But the real reason why you should know who Antoine Fuqua is, is because he is a pretty solid and consistent action director. His movies are never great (with the exception of Training Day but that was mainly Denzel) but they are always entertaining and violent as hell. Look at his resume’, and if you haven’t seen some of these, do yourself a favor and get on it : the grossly underrated Brooklyn’s Finest, Tears of the Sun, Training Day, and The Replacement Killers just to name the highlights. His movies never get a lot of hype or the proper marketing behind them but it doesn’t matter because he’s found his niche in Hollywood. Make action movies on the cheap and get a big enough star to draw in a decent opening weekend number so that the studio can make a profit. Who says the Frenchies are dumb and spineless? Well this movie is no different although I must say that the preview made it look so awful that even I contemplated passing on it; but like all true action fans I am happy that I didn’t.

Let me first say that the plot is unbelievably ridiculous and totally implausible. But once you accept this fact and just sit back and enjoy this movie for what it is, an almost shot for shot modern day version of Die Hard 1, then you will find yourself shouting at the screen and cheering with glee when bad guys bite the dust in horrible ways. For the record this happened in my theater as well as a buddy of mine's. Gerard Butler stars as Mike Banning, the head secret service guy for the President’s (Aaron Eckhart) detail. Well after an accident that couldn't be avoided occurs one Christmas Eve night, he is reassigned to desk duty; that is until the North Koreans come to the rescue. In a daring and video game like attack on Washington D.C. using a C-130 (I have no idea what that is, basically a flying gunship) that takes out F-15’s and random citizens on the street, angry military trained mercenaries, and suicide bombers, the Koreans are able to take control of the White House. And with the aid of former secret service agent Dylan McDermott they are able to gain access to the presidential bunker where they attempt to get the nuclear codes necessary to turn our own bombs against us. Along with that they use the leverage they have with having the president as a hostage to pressure the government heads to pull out of South Korea so they can invade and take over. 

There’s no way Gerard Butler can sit on the sideline and allow this happen. So as soon as the attack begins he instantly springs into action and fights his way into the White House. But along the way, the Koreans successfully kill ever secret service agent that was on the premises, leaving Butler as the only eyes and ears for the now acting president Morgan Freeman who tries to handle this situation from the war room with the other military and department heads.  Once he realizes that Butler is his only shot at resolving this nightmare, he releases the ruthless mad dog on these menacing foreigners. “I’m gonna f’n kill ya, I’m gonna f’n cook ya, and I’m gonna f’n eat ya!’ 

I would’ve quoted the “Now I have a machine gun. Ho Ho Ho” line from Die Hard but Butler’s weapon of choice for the most part was the knife. And he constantly knives people to death with a stab to the brain as if they were zombies. In a new low point for the desensitization to violence, he has one interrogation scene in particular that has you clapping and laughing as if someone just a got a pie in the face. Morgan Freeman and Angela Bassett work together to fill the role of black cop that encourages him through the hostage situation and Rick Yune does an adequate job of basically playing the Korean version of Hans. I like this movie because while the plot is ridiculous, they never treat it as a joke or make it too hammy, although it does comes close at certain times. They treat it like a true throw back to the late 80’s and early 90’s action movies. What do you mean a supercomputer wont play a chess match with a high school boy to see if the world dies? Of course that can happen. 

I rate this movie as FRESH because of the violent action and because it’s Americans kicking mean foreigners’ asses! I actually had a friend try and tell me that he thought that the movie was stupid which led to my reply “Don’t you like Die Hard? Don’t you Merica?” And yes I purposely left off the A in America for added emphasis. I then promptly called what's left of Homeland Security to turn him in but sadly only Hacksaw Jim Duggan answered the phone so my friend is still roaming the streets free.