Angel Has Fallen

I love me some Gerard Butler and Morgan Freeman, but Nick Nolte is the best thing to happen to this film.

This is being judged too harshly. Is it predictable? Yes. Generic? Yeah. But what do you expect? It's a nuts and bolts action film, entertaining enough and worth your time.

Early in this film we get two things pointed out. First we get to meet an old friend of Angel, who is the head of a large private military contractor. Secondly we understand that the President (who is guarded by Angel) is clamping down on private military contractors. The rest of it writes itself from here, and the plot is fairly by the numbers in terms of what it does. Fortunately it has the money to make it look good and have some good action, even if the story is hokum. It helps of course that nothing about it suggests that it is anything more than a B-movie thriller.

It has plenty of military hardware, masculinity, gruff dialogue, and shots of people running with guns; all of which keeps the film moving along reasonably well. If offers nothing more than this. The viewer will know the plot before the film gets there, so one does find that you need the famous faces and solid set pieces to distract; and luckily both do. Engaging but routine action sequences distract, and inbetween I found myself wondering what made Butler into a star, how Perabo looks so terrific when she is the same age as me, whether or not Pinkett-Smith had surgery (well, she clearly did on the basis of this), and if Danny Huston is really a good actor or just has a genetic disposition to being a good screen presence. And on top of that we have Nick Nolte doing top Nolte.

The result is enjoyable enough, but totally forgettable - indeed I often write these little comments months after the facts now due to other time pressures, but in this case I wrote it within a few hours as I figured the film would be gone within a few days. It's fine as late night TV tosh, but nothing more than that.

After looking at my list for this year, there really aren't that many straight forward action films made anymore. But Angel Has Fallen came at the perfect time, end of August/early September when there's not much else out in theaters, at least blockbuster movie wise. While not better than the first entry 'Olympus Has Fallen', it is certainly superior to 'London Has Fallen' from 2016, and it makes for a nice cap to the 'Has Fallen' trilogy. That is, if this is the end to the series. And look, there's a ceiling to Gerard Butler's acting talent, but he's more than serviceable in a role like this and last year's Den of Thieves. Oh and Nick Nolte? He's so dang good in this movie it feels like he's on an entirely different level than everyone else. I'm here for it.

7.0/10

If you enjoyed the previous 2 movies, this movie follows the same simple formula but it's a very nice 3rd movie. Don't go in expecting a deep story, some actors just scream bad guy straight away and make everything predictable, go in just to enjoy the nice combat scenes and fast paced action. Overall it's a nice film to just enjoy without thinking too much about it.