The young writers show promise with both dialogue zingers and clever setups and payoffs. Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt offer their debut effort, but let’s not give up on them just yet. If “Olympus Has Fallen” feels like it was written by first-time screenwriters, it’s because it was. In “Training Day,” he had David Ayer, who wrote and directed one of last year’s best movies in “End of Watch” (2012). In “Shooter,” he had Jonathan Lemkin, who proved his chops in “The Devil’s Advocate” (1997). He is capable of excellence in both - if he has the right screenwriter. You’re a virgin shooter above suspicion.”įuqua is no “virgin shooter.” His career has two distinct strains - plots about street crime (“Training Day,” “Bait”) and plots to kill the president (“Shooter,” “Hunter Killer”). “That’s a bit of a tall order, to be honest, that the South Korean prime minister didn’t actually realize that five of his guys were terrorists, so you stretch the truth a bit.”įuqua should have taken Denzel’s “Training Day” advice: “You wanna walk your baby (cajones) around the block, you won’t make it to the corner, but if you’re cool, *if* you’re cool, then you’re a hero.
“A lot of it is heightened reality,” Butler candidly admitted at the D.C. Is he doing a realistic military/intelligence thriller like “Argo” and “Zero Dark Thirty,” or an escapist romp like “Independence Day?” We’re set up to believe the former, only to dive hard the other way into the “gates of hell.”
Fuqua seems unsure as to what type of movie he’s making. And for this reason, I couldn’t totally buy into the flick. I wanted to shout at the screen, “Get busy living or get busy dying, but do something!” Even Morgan Freeman, the former film president (“Deep Impact”), is handcuffed by a script that treats him like a “Shawshank” prisoner. While Butler runs through terrorists as a one-man wrecking crew, the Pentagon officials are helpless and indecisive on the other end of their walkie-talkies. The problem I have with the movie is how little support he’s given by the other characters. As Butler judo chops each militant into submission, I was reminded of the “300” (2006) line, “This is madness,” to which Butler shouts “Madness? This is Sparta!” In this light, there is much fun to be had in “Olympus Has Fallen,” as CGI crashes topple the Washington Monument and Butler kicks just as much terrorist ass as Bruce Willis in “Die Hard” (1988).
So to watch them be destroyed and taken down by terrorist bad guys, it obviously affects you in an emotional way, as opposed to fictional buildings we made up.” “There’s an emotional connection to these wonderful symbols that represent our freedom, liberty, honor and what we’re about as a country. “We can show your imagination what we never want to happen,” said director Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day”) at the film’s D.C. Plots like this gin up the popcorn fan inside us, as we relish the vicarious experience of watching a “what if” disaster unfold, while knowing the lights will eventually come on and everything will be okay. They capture the president, defense secretary (Melissa Leo) and other cabinet officials, taking them to a bunker beneath the White House and leaving the speaker of the House (Morgan Freeman) to serve as acting president with his top Pentagon officials (led by Angela Bassett). A few months later, he must rescue the president (Aaron Eckhart, aka Harvey Dent) from a group of North Korean terrorists who pose as members of a South Korean envoy during a diplomatic visit to the White House. The former opens today, telling the tale of Mike Banning (Gerard Butler), a former Secret Service agent who left the job after a car crash killed the First Lady (Ashley Judd). They also have comically similar titles: “Olympus Has Fallen” and “White House Down.” They have identical plots of a Secret Service agent saving the president from a hostage takeover. Today, in our post-9/11 movie world, the line between horrific reality and safe movie escapism is becoming increasingly blurred, as foreign militants continue their threats and domestic terrorists shoot up movie theaters.Īnd so in 2013, the year after the world was supposed to end, Hollywood gives us two attacks on the White House.
That’s because our only memories of crumbling skyscrapers and exploding government buildings were from Hollywood blockbusters like “Independence Day” (1996). WASHINGTON – When 9/11 happened, all anyone could say was that it was like something out of a movie.