'Olympus Has Fallen' delivers the action

It's been 25 years now since Die Hard was released, establishing a formula of the lone man overcoming a series of obstacles and baddies in order to save the day. Since then there have been a countless number of rip-offs in the action genre and the latest one comes in the form of Olympus Has Fallen, or Die Hard in the White House if you will.

Now if you take this film for what it is and are in the mood for a high-octane, formulaic action film filled with copious amounts of gun violence then you could do worse then to see Olympus Has Fallen. Surprisingly it was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be. But don't get me wrong, this isn't a great movie either. It has a pretty ridiculous and implausible premise and it contains some horribly written dialogue that is almost laughable at times. Unintelligent script aside however, it features some very exciting and well done action sequences that will keep you gripped to your seat and for the most part are quite entertaining.

Gerard Butler plays Secret Service Agent Mike Banning who, as the film opens, is tasked with escorting the President (Aaron Eckhart) and his family from Camp David for a Christmas gala. When a horrible car accident occurs and the first lady (Ashley Judd) is killed, Banning blames himself because his focus was primarily on saving the President. It's now 18 months later and Banning has left the Secret Service and taken a desk job with the Treasury Department, still haunted by the accident.

Meanwhile, at the White House, the President is hosting a delegation from South Korea to engage in peace talks. All of a sudden a heavily armed plane flies into Washington airspace and starts firing on the White House, while a well-coordinated  ground assault is executed resulting in the President and members of his cabinet being taken captive and held in an underground bunker. This 15-20 minute sequence is the action centerpiece of the film and it's quite spectacular.

The leader of the assault is a radical North Korean terrorist named Kang (Rick Yune). He wants the U.S. to pull all of their military support away from South Korea, leaving them vulnerable to attack, but he also has an even more nefarious plan in the works as well and he is willing to kill anyone in cold blood in order to get what he wants.

It just so happens that when all of this is going down, Banning, whose office is conveniently located near the White House, is able to avoid detection and fight his way into the building. Once inside he establishes contact with the speaker of the house, and acting commander-in-chief (Morgan Freeman), the Secret Service director (Angela Bassett) and an Army general (Robert Forster). He is now the only man who can thwart the villains and save the day. From this point on we get the fairly standard formula action picture.

One thing I have to say is that Olympus Has Fallen definitely earns its R rating. The level of violence on display is brutal and unflinching. I'm actually glad that director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, Shooter) didn't shy away from showing the real, harsh consequences of gun violence like some of the PG-13 action films do. If Hollywood is going to continue to nurture America's obsession with guns and violence then better that they depict it as accurately and brutally bloody as it truly is rather than the bloodless, video game style violence where no real consequences seem evident.

Fuqua does a decent job of staging his action sequences and he keeps the film moving along at a fairly fast pace. There's not a ton of down time, and it held my interest for the majority of its duration.

The performances are fine all around. Butler is a capable and believable action hero and the role seems to suit him just fine. He's made some terrible career choices in the last several years but when given the right type of role he is more than adequate.

The issues I had with the film stem mostly from the clichéd and hackneyed script. There are some definite eye-rolling moments and the level of plausibility is stretched to its limits at times, but I suppose that is to be expected from most movies in this particular genre.

The bottom line is, if you enjoy these types of slam-bang action films where you can essentially shut your brain off for 2 hours and just be entertained then Olympus Has Fallen will likely do the trick for you.

I give Olympus Has Fallen a 6 out of 10.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.