Review of Olympus Has Fallen (2013) by Hoops2448 — 31 May 2013

Antoine Fuqua knows how to display brutality in a film, be it physical or psychological and Olympus Has Fallen is bloody and traumatic but overall its a colossal waste of time, money and a plethora of talented actors.

The film follows Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) who was the president's lead bodyguard until a tragic accident leaves him warming the bench. However when armed terrorists lay siege to the White House Mike must prove himself by saving not only the president but his son, a young boy who went missing when the gunfire started.

Olympus avoids the many action cliches that ruin many a film but in doing so it fails to create any sense of suspense. Everything that happens is without any sense of jeopardy due to the way Mike is shown, he is a killing machine.

The film has no tension so therefore it lacks a tone and its looks can be described by just saying the word brown, the film is dark, dingy and dirty and not in a good way, the film is miserably shot. Everything about the film is murky, hard to see and depressing, even in the uplifting moments.

It's a film that because of its story is exceptionally bloody but it never really justifies the excessive brutality so by the end the main hero is essentially a sadist and an effective one at that considering he kills a small army in this film.

They even attempt to justify his hero status with a girlfriend (Rhada Mitchell) who is literally there to service a plot point that isn't even successfully conveyed. They try a little harder by making him good with kids (because what kind of sociopath would be nice to a child is what I imagine the logic behind this was) as he protects the President's (Aaron Eckhart) son but even this doesn't mesh with the one man army the film is showing you, in fact by the end of the film Banning comes off as a highly trained, highly intelligent serial killer, only he doesn't have to hide any of his crimes.

The film is populated with characters so badly written that they are completely unsympathetic. When the President gets threatened you kinda hope they kill him, to be honest, he really deserves it by the end.

Melissa Leo gives good tough gal as the Secretary of Defense and Morgan Freeman comes in to literally order coffee and sit and relax. It's a film so remarkably stupid in its writing that the only enjoyable moments are the ones where they aren't talking but even the action fails to maintain your interest.

In fact an action scene late into the movie is so hard to see that it sucks the life out of the ending and its a good 5 minute segment of blurry rubbish. It's a tone deaf mess of an action film that really could have been better.