Admittedly, my hopes were not high for this film. After the generic but passably entertaining Olympus Has Fallen, all I could hope for was another round of big scale action sequences and another dose of that peculiarly cathartic feeling you get when watching famous landmarks get destroyed in spectacular ways. The familiar setting in this offering was also an undeniable hook for this Brit moviegoer, but sadly, even overwhelmingly, these shallow hopes were squandered, and the result is a film that well and truly falls into the Dire Sequel category of filmmaking.
London Has Fallen, made sure by its to the point title, doesn’t require a lot of plot synopsis. After the unexpected death of the British Prime Minister, a state funeral is held in the country’s capital and a handful of world leaders are invited as guests. Our old friends Benjamin Asher, the United States President played by Aaron Eckhart, and his Secret Service right-hand man Mike Banning, played by Gerard Butler, are among those invited. But alas, something of a trap appears to be underfoot, and before long the congregation is interrupted by a series of coordinated attacks initiated by a vengeful terrorist mastermind. Needless to say our heroes have to save the day.
To put it bluntly, the theme of vengeful Middle Eastern terrorists has beyond soured from my point of view. What’s more is that there is hardly an explanation for what motivates Aamir Barkawi, the so-called villain of the movie (played by Alon Aboutboul). Yes, he wants revenge for the U.S. drone strike of his secret compound at the beginning of the film, but what are his real motives? Is this not an integral part of the narrative for action films anymore? Do the superficial qualities of a villain’s persona – their heritage, name, accent – out-trump any meaningful character development? This is what concerns me. On the one hand, it could be said that this is nothing new from Hollywood. But on the other, it is simply just bad storytelling.
The whole film, unsurprisingly, follows this pattern of us versus them, but it takes it to disturbing heights. One particularly distasteful line shouted by Butler’s character essentially lumps every Middle Eastern country ending in ‘stan’ into one wholly undesirable entity. I don’t want to sound patronising, but this is not an acceptable attitude to put across. Borrowing a word from virtually every other review I have seen: it is xenophobic, but unashamedly so. Even in the last few minutes, when the pro-American rhetoric comes to the forefront, there is fearful talk of threats posed by unnamed countries and an encouragement for us all to be vigilant. Not only does the film advocate for an ethnocentric view of the world but it is also an unapologetic defence of American military aggression.
Moving on from those issues, London Has Fallen is a stylistic failure as well. Take the central relationship between the two leads. After a certain point I felt an odd dynamic emerge as Butler’s wildly violent outbursts didn’t really gel with Eckhart’s somewhat childlike confusion, and the result is a pretty weird chemistry, or lack thereof. Leading on from that, the violence itself is quite mind-numbing, and after the final point-blank head stabbing you are left with a nasty taste in your mouth. This is unfortunately one of those films that totally mishandles these aspects and it just comes across as mean-spirited. Not to mention some of the shootouts being so ridiculously lifeless as Butler mows down wave after wave of terrorists without any respite or even a hint of tension.
Dialogue-wise, it is not great. In fact, there are some truly bizarre one-liner moments that made me question whether the whole thing wanted to be taken seriously or not. It felt like the writers had abandoned any pretence of wit or humour, to the point where at times it sounded like a parody of itself. And no, the scenes of London’s destruction sadly were not enough to distract me from this. It was enjoyable to watch the demolishment of Chelsea Bridge, as well as some RPG gunfights on the London streets among other things, but in reality there wasn’t much of this stuff, and a lot of it was even shown in the trailer.
There are some other things I liked about the film: I thought the Queen’s Guard double agents were a nice touch, and I like Colin Salmon. But, no. London Has Fallen is a regressive film that doesn’t give one much faith in Hollywood blockbusters.
*Originally published on the Redbrick website, 14 March 2016