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A pretty good Die Hard in a White House
Mar. 22nd, 2013 04:09 pmYes, I know. We all wanted Air Force One 2: The White House, where, for some reason, Harrison Ford has been elected President five consecutive times (or just re-elected after four other terms) and he has to tell Gary Oldman's twin brother "Get out of my House." But it was not to be, and Olympus Has Fallen is actually a decent substitute. It's pretty much a remake of Die Hard, and not as good as Die Hard, but it's a decent Air Force One.
Gerard Butler plays Mike Banning, a Service Service agent with ex-Special Forces training (as you do). He's introduced boxing with the President (Aaron Eckhart). That is the kind of movie you are in for, and if you can pull a Community and pretend March 22 is July 4th (the movie actually takes places on July 5th), you'll have a red, white, and blue time.
In short order, the First Lady (Ashley Judd) is killed in a car accident; now she's free to do season two of Missing or not. Mike, of course, has guilt because, ehh, character arc. And despite what happened the last time Aaron Eckhart's lady died, eighteen months later, he's about to meet with a South Korean delegation to tell the North Koreans to knock off their shit before we remake Red Dawn with them as the bad guys. But, with resources not wholly explained (maybe they won the Mega-Lotto?), North Korean terrorists have infiltrated the delegation and set up an attack on Washington involving a C-130, suicide vests, bus bombings, scary face-masks, and garbage trucks (a scrolling news ticker later reads "Sanitation Union denies involvement"). Luckily, Mike Banning was in the White House following a "Need redemption? Inquire within!" sign and, as he himself notes, is the President, indeed America's, only hope.
And yes, things do get silly. There's a better Lincoln-kill then the movie Lincoln ever offered; hang your head in shame, Daniel Day-Lewis. And, to give you one non-spoilery example, the Secret Service has a bomb-sniffing dog at their disposal. When fifty (!) terrorists invade the White House lawn, the dog goes out to bite some North Korean (there's a truly tasteless 'revenge' joke in there somewhere). And the terrorists shoot him. Look, occupying the White House, taking the President hostage, and lowering the flag was one thing, but shooting the dog? Now we're sending King Leonidas after you.
And in a move I know will make you wacky libertarians happy, a movie set in the White House is actually pro-American. Banning isn't a cowboy cop, he's a Service Service agent doing his job, and the people he (naturally) gets into radio contact with on the outside are reasonable authority figures who he mostly gets on well with. Even the villain isn't some sympathetic terrorist whose mother was raped by Marines because she wouldn't tell them where her oil was (OIIIIIIIILLLLLLLL!). He's just a prick. And instead of an ee-vil corporation backing him, he has help from a dickhead ex-Serviceman who spouts Occupy Wall Street rhetoric. It's a nice change of pace.
I do think, since they lift whole subplots from Die Hard, they should've given Bruce Willis a cameo, the same way Source Code did with Scott Bakula to acknowledge they were lifting from Quantum Leap. You know, make Bruno one of the Army Generals Morgan Freeman has to dicker with. Maybe let him shoot Karl after he pops up at the last moment, when everyone thinks he's dead.
Bonus points: The script had a part for a white man, but it was eventually cast with a black woman. Or, as it's called in the biz, they pulled a Reverse DC Comics.
Gerard Butler plays Mike Banning, a Service Service agent with ex-Special Forces training (as you do). He's introduced boxing with the President (Aaron Eckhart). That is the kind of movie you are in for, and if you can pull a Community and pretend March 22 is July 4th (the movie actually takes places on July 5th), you'll have a red, white, and blue time.
In short order, the First Lady (Ashley Judd) is killed in a car accident; now she's free to do season two of Missing or not. Mike, of course, has guilt because, ehh, character arc. And despite what happened the last time Aaron Eckhart's lady died, eighteen months later, he's about to meet with a South Korean delegation to tell the North Koreans to knock off their shit before we remake Red Dawn with them as the bad guys. But, with resources not wholly explained (maybe they won the Mega-Lotto?), North Korean terrorists have infiltrated the delegation and set up an attack on Washington involving a C-130, suicide vests, bus bombings, scary face-masks, and garbage trucks (a scrolling news ticker later reads "Sanitation Union denies involvement"). Luckily, Mike Banning was in the White House following a "Need redemption? Inquire within!" sign and, as he himself notes, is the President, indeed America's, only hope.
And yes, things do get silly. There's a better Lincoln-kill then the movie Lincoln ever offered; hang your head in shame, Daniel Day-Lewis. And, to give you one non-spoilery example, the Secret Service has a bomb-sniffing dog at their disposal. When fifty (!) terrorists invade the White House lawn, the dog goes out to bite some North Korean (there's a truly tasteless 'revenge' joke in there somewhere). And the terrorists shoot him. Look, occupying the White House, taking the President hostage, and lowering the flag was one thing, but shooting the dog? Now we're sending King Leonidas after you.
And in a move I know will make you wacky libertarians happy, a movie set in the White House is actually pro-American. Banning isn't a cowboy cop, he's a Service Service agent doing his job, and the people he (naturally) gets into radio contact with on the outside are reasonable authority figures who he mostly gets on well with. Even the villain isn't some sympathetic terrorist whose mother was raped by Marines because she wouldn't tell them where her oil was (OIIIIIIIILLLLLLLL!). He's just a prick. And instead of an ee-vil corporation backing him, he has help from a dickhead ex-Serviceman who spouts Occupy Wall Street rhetoric. It's a nice change of pace.
I do think, since they lift whole subplots from Die Hard, they should've given Bruce Willis a cameo, the same way Source Code did with Scott Bakula to acknowledge they were lifting from Quantum Leap. You know, make Bruno one of the Army Generals Morgan Freeman has to dicker with. Maybe let him shoot Karl after he pops up at the last moment, when everyone thinks he's dead.
Bonus points: The script had a part for a white man, but it was eventually cast with a black woman. Or, as it's called in the biz, they pulled a Reverse DC Comics.
