After donning the role of Mike Banning since Olympus Has Fallen, Gerard Butler is again up to his gun slinging and explosive ways for the third time here in Angel Has Fallen. He has been shot at, thrown into chaos, blown up, ridiculed and awarded for this efforts, all these have taken a toll on him that he is considering retirement in this last (?) film.
He noticed his physical degradation at his friend's private military contract training facility when he went head on with the younger guys lead by Wade Jennings (played by Danny Huston). Albeit alone, he was able to win by using his vast experience over youth. This situation made him realize that he may opt to retire before something happens to the president, whom he guards.
Yes, something did happen to the president and it resulted to president Allan Trumbull (played by Morgan Freeman) being in a coma. Bad news - the assassination attempt evidences all lead to our angel, Mike Banning.
While being transported to a secure holding facility, Banning was "rescued" by Jennings' men and where he was supposed to be killed, something happens and Banning was able to escape. He wants now to clear his name and bring those responsible to justice.
Eventually he learns that his friend Jennings was to blame from the assassination to his frame up and a showdown was in the works. Jennings wanted still to finish what he started with the president and finally end the feud between him and Banning and this made for a great firefight in the hospital grounds.
When the smoke cleared, the president was alive and well, Banning was exonerated and the evil mastermind (we then learned it wasn't Jennings) was arrested.
If you like the "fallen" series (not the movie by Denzel Washington) then surely you appreciate this one. Although if you ask us, this is like a step down from the mayhem we saw in "Olympus has fallen" and "London has fallen". The latter two were big or should we say huge production and coverage. While on the third installment of the franchise, we see 1990's style of action, similar to that classic Harrison Ford movie "the Fugitive" which we liked by the way.
Here they almost patterned it with that 1993 movie, from the plot of him being framed, that someone helped him along the way, it was an uncanny resemblance. They thought that millinneals wouldn't have watched it then so this maybe something new. But I'm no millinneal and yes we know that movie so unlucky for them. The only thing different here was the president was alive and that there was a family angle (Jennings tried to kidnap Banning's family).
The mayhem was still great though, although some scenes were so explosive that sometimes you have to wonder if it was still realistic or plausible. The whole mountain exploding was great, that somehow the bad guys were able to survive it is a puzzle piece for us. Since the area of responsibility is much smaller than the White House and London , they had to make the explosions much bigger we guessed. And bigger explosions they had.
Casting wise, we still like Gerard Butler as Mike Banning. He pulled another great one here but in some scenes though, we can see him as Mike Chadway (another mike character) in that movie "The Ugly Truth" and Milo Boyd in "The Bounty Hunter". We just like him killing off bad guys here for a change.
Morgan Freeman is Morgan Freeman and sadly he was in a coma for most parts of the film. Lucky him. Another sad note, he had a few lines delivered here but they were awesome. Another meaty character is Nick Nolte as his long lost dad, not lost as he was being "tracked" by Mike electronically. He is still slick as ever with his acting even if they were short moments in the film. He's got to shave his beard though, all his last 4 films he had them and we think he will be the next The Revenant. We still think though that putting Nick Nolte in the mix is a good move since it added a spice to the story and his meaty drama added some flavor to the unsurprising movie we have here.
Piper Perabo of Covert Affairs fame is here as Mike Banning's wife. She replaced Radha Mitchell who played the wife in the first two films. After seeing Radha, we still want to see her in that role. Perabo was great and is a great actor, but we like to see Radha.
Story wise, if you like The Fugitive, then you will surely like this one. The only catch is, you know the plot already beforehand. Justice will prevail in the end. So no more surprise there. To add more to the no surprise thing, early on the film, we know that Jennings was a bad guy. Looks alone gave it away and the all the lines in the script point in that direction. When Banning was "rescued" earlier, he found out that the men who did, he identified them to be connected with Jennings. Another spoiler for us.
We like the explosions, the fights, the damage, the carnage, the technology here that we admit was great to watch. And we liked Nick Nolte here.
If you got nothing to do, and get hold of a copy, you may watch this to be enterained. Nothing cerebral, just lots of popcorn and its a great action movie night for you.
