Gerard Butler has often been described as the A-List celebrity with the B-list CV and unfortunately, despite those rugged good looks, this would unfortunately describe his career to date. Including a number of ill-fated rom-coms, Butler has been overused in the whole action movie field, starring in everything from Coriolanus, where we could barely understand a word to Machine Gun Preacher and Law Abiding Citizen. Gerard hasn’t really made a good film since Guy Ritchie’s RocknRolla, and even this was mauled by certain critics.
On the other hand, Aaron Eckhart is perhaps the most underrated and underused actor in Hollywood. From an excellent performance in Thank You for Smoking to his genius turn as Harvey Dent in the Dark Knight, Eckhart has constantly made critics question why he has not been used more frequently or for bigger productions. Unfortunately, the Christopher Nolan film was his last great work, The Rum Diary only proved a huge disservice to his career, the woeful Love Happens practically placing him on the scrap heap.
Olympus then, was probably the career lift that both the actors needed. Revolving around Secret Service agent Mike Banning, played by Gerard Butler, Olymus Has Fallen is an almost cliché piece of filmmaking regarding an invasion on U.S. soil. The title refers to the code word that is used when the United States loses control of the White House.
Banning has served his time in the President’s service but was removed following an incident which cost the President one of the people he loved. Events unfold 18 months later when an ambassador from South Korea attends a meeting in the White House in order to resolve a delicate situation which exists there. Little does the President know that North Korea has been successful in not only infiltrating themselves into the South Korean detail, but also launching a fairly substantial onslaught on Washington D.C.
If you can suspend every single fact you know concerning the States’ ability to defend itself against a foreign attack, then you will get on just fine with Olympus Has Fallen. Unfortunately, besides the fact that is highly unlikely an armed plane would ever make it into Washington air space directly over the White House, it would also be very hard to believe that every single Secret Service agent would move towards bullets being fired on the White House in an attack. It is also quite the stretch that Banning would end up being the only Secret Service member alive.
However, the fact that Olympus is quite a fun ride will prevent you questioning any of the obvious plot holes. You will root for Butler’s Banning the entire way through, he acts as a character somewhere caught between MacGyver and John McClane and that was quite alright with us. This is perhaps the most we have enjoyed one of his performances. Eckhart is underused, as usual, trapped in a bunker, he rarely has to do more than shout abuse and defy his kidnappers. Morgan Freeman is the stand out performance and there are no real surprises there. While working as the acting President, Freeman got more than enough cheers from the audience at the particular screening we attended.
Olympus is just clean fun as long as you don’t take it too seriously. It’s also worth it for this one line: “Let’s play a game of “Go F**k Yourself”, you go first.”
