Operation Olympus - White House Taken

That is 90 minutes of my life I will never get back. To say the acting was bad is a discredit to bad actors. The story line was painful to follow and the action was dull and predictable at best. I like Ray Liota in a lot of his rolls but he must have been desperate to go for this one. It is a horrible remake that should have never seen the light of day. Purcell was decent in Prison Break but in this atrocity his acting talent was limited to scowls, stupid short lines and poor prep on how to handle a firearm. The premise of the movie sounded intriguing but it just did not deliver. The kid that played Pidge must have been picked up at the local middle school drama department and on the way back to the set the stopped at the senior center to get someone to play grandpa, neither one was convincing. To say this movie is a bomb is to be gracious.

I knew going in that the rating was low, but I thought maybe it was because Uwe Boll have many people who dislike him and maybe didn't give it a fair chance.

Now don't get me wrong, the first Uwe Boll movies I saw was 'House Of The Dead' and 'Alone In The Dark' and later 'In The Name Of The King' and they truly were terrible so he does get a bad name occasionally for a good reason.

But I've also discovered that he occasionally can be a pretty good filmmaker as well 'Rampage', 'Rampage: Capital Punishment', 'Assault On Wall Street' and 'Heart of America' are all solid movies for me.

I think those movies are close to Boll's heart and therefor they come out a lot better as he gives them a proper effort.

With this one though, not much effort was given at all.

The dialogue is poor, the acting is poor even the cinematography and pace is poor yeah there's really not many positives to give away here.

If I was forced to give one positive than I suppose I could say that at least it's not Boll's worst movie.

"Today is a glorious day. Today I get to kill the President." Barren (Purcell) has become disillusioned with the President and his policies. He devises a plan that will help deal with his problem. Him and his accomplices pose as secret service agents and take up a position in a family's house that has the perfect sniping position. When a local cop (Liotta) shows up Barren's perfect plan starts to unravel. Uwe Boll's trademark seems to be lame movies with poor acting but decent action. This one had both. The movie itself isn't really that terrible but it is also fairly generic and predictable. There have been many movies about trying to stop a presidential assassin and I usually like movies with that plot. I did like this one too but it's not one of the better ones and I don't think I would watch this again. I have not seen the original with Frank Sinatra but I would guess that one is better. I could be wrong though. Overall, nothing terrible but nothing amazing either. I give it a C+

Some movies just shouldn't be remade. I gave this film a 2 star rating because I did watch to the end. I like the actors, but they can't make up for poor script revision and direction. It also doesn't help that they took what is largely a dialog film and tried to add too much action. My advice go to YouTube and watch the original (B&W not colorized). Frank Sinatra, Sterling Hayden and James Gleason carried the movie with style. Direction by Lewis Allen was excellent. The original pulls all the pieces together better. I don't want to put any spoilers in, so I'll simply say that there was no reason to change Todds' character. And Pidge played better as a kid than a teenager.

I am not at all sure what the reason is for so many Canadian movie productions being of such poor quality. The fact is there is NO good reason for it. We have terrific writers, a wide variety of talented actors, and several great directors. A decent film doesn't start and end with any of that though. It starts and ends with solid producing, of which this production egregiously lacks.

Suddenly simply falls flat from the get-go and never really takes off nor goes anywhere. For one thing a Presidential visit to a small town looks like a grand affair, but the portrayal of that in this film comes off as low budget and rinky-dink. The actual Secret Service would have been all over that town.

Much of the dialogue is hollow, along with too much needless footage and shots, all serve to bring the watchability of it down further yet. Liotta's character had real promise but again, with not much in the way of meaty dialogue or depth of story even his is a somewhat tinny performance at best.

Weak writing is usually the main cause for actors coming off as bad, while poor direction is to blame for actors over-acting. Weak writing however can at least to some degree be compensated for with solid directing, but sadly that's another thing this film is sorely lacking in. Thus the entire production comes off as thin and very low budget. Newsflash Canada: "Low budget" does not always have to look as such.

Final thoughts --- This film does not do justice to the original with Frank Sinatra, not by half. The ending is somewhat inconclusive, and anyone who has developed any sort of connection with any of the principle characters is going to be disappointed at the lack of a decent story wrap-up. If you're bored and there's nothing much else on then go ahead and kill 90 minutes, but please don't blame me if you end up wanting your time back.

2/10, and that's being generous here.