Olympus Has Fallen fits nicely into the realm of belief where there’s a large part of America that actually will take this film seriously. Thus it’s far more fun to respond to it as an exercise in camp. Who cares if director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) intends it that way?
The ludicrous premise? Not so much that the White House will be reduced to shattered pieces by ominous terrorists from North Korea but that a lone ranger will manage to infiltrate the occupied White House and save the day. Fanned by a bad break early in the film, former Secret Service agent Mike manning (Gerald Butler) sinks deeper into bitterness and despair once he’s relegated to a toothless DC desk job. When the enemy plane and busloads of no-good Koreans enter the fray, Manning wakes up and takes to the street, telling innocent pedestrians who are being shot down like flies to “get down” while he breeezily takes out a few terrorists. The scenes portraying the attacks, while they might not exactly rival the riveting tsunami scenes from The Impossible, have a merit of their own if you’re able to place your tongue firmly your cheek. As disaster movies go, we’ve all certainly seen worse. This one’s actually fun at times. I won’t even say once you’ve suspended your disbelief, since that is assumed.
So leaving aside the numerous plot holes, since I doubt you have that much time, there are thrills aplenty in Olympus, albeit cheap and minor ones. Keep your eye on Butler’s response to a couple of terrorists he manages to abduct and tie up in the White House. His comeback once they start laughing at him is not to be missed, so don’t out for popcorn in the movie’s middle segments. You can actually leave the theater for awhile in the film’s final segments, however, since they’re as predictable as winds in March. But en route there you’ll be treated to a stunned Morgan Freeman taking over as acting President since both the President (Aaron Elkhart) and Vice President are bound and gagged in the ostensibly impenetrable bunker beneath the White House. Freeman’s response to the startling news that he’s now in charge (didn’t he read his job description?) is to order–with all the gravitas to be expected from Morgan Freeman–a cup of coffee. You won’t need much caffeine for most of Butler’s scenes. He’s actually rather plausible despite his improbable situations. Fresh on the heels of the stinker Playing For Keeps, where hot women the likes of Una Thurman, Jessica Bile, and Catherine Zeta-Jones kept throwing themselves his way, here he barely has time for his emergency room nurse wife (Rasta Mitchell). Bring on the bad guys.
Supporting players the likes of Robert Forrester, Melissa Leo, Delbert Mulroney and Angela Bassett preen and pose convincingly enough. Ashley Judd is around just long enough to remind us she’s probably running for Congress and we’ll see her onscreen even less if she wins. Yet it’s Butler’s show. When Freeman considers taking the Seventh Fleet out of Korea in order to save the President’s life, it’s Butler who has to remind him via telephones that a lot more is at stake. I know I said we’d ignore the film’s implausibilites but frankly there’s one whopper concerning America’s secret codes as they affect its nuclear arsenals that was so grave I have to notch the film’s rating down by at least half a point. All the jingoistic pandering and fear-mongering paranoia doesn’t make much of a dent in the pure satisfaction gained from a decent pulp thriller, but insulting our intelligence certainly offsets it some.
2 1/2 Wild Maniac Terrorists Waltz Into The White House (out of 5)