Angel Has Fallen Review

In a world of superhero films and PG-13 action fare the Fallen series has stood out for being R-rated and po-faced. Angel Has Fallen, acts as a closer to the trilogy.

Years of service has finally caught up with Mike Banning (Gerard Butler). He is suffering from insomnia and migraines and he has to take painkillers to get through the day. He is also in line to become the Director of the Secret Service, even though he doesn’t want a desk job. During a fishing trip an assassination attempt on the President of the United States (Morgan Freeman), leaves only two survivors, the President and Banning. Banning soon becomes the prime suspect, forcing him to go on the run and prove his innocence.

The previous two films in the series were utterly ridiculous.  Olympus Has Fallen had a rogue faction of the North Korean Intelligence Agency taking over the White House and holding the president hostage and in London Has Fallen Islamic terrorists take over the Met and kill many major world leaders. Angel Has Fallen scales this back considerably. Major landmarks aren’t being destroyed and Banning’s story was basically The Fugitive.

This was done because London Has Fallen was wildly offensive. Its premise was based on Islamophobia, used offensive terms like ‘raghead’ and ‘Fuckheadistan,’ and was jingoistic with its support for drone strikes. It was a nasty excuse for an action film. Angel Has Fallen avoided these pitfalls by making the villain a private military contractor which is a much easier target. The political context of the film was America was overstretched. The wider plot of the film lifted from the second season of 24 where shadowy figures were trying to manipulate America into war so they could profit. Because of the film’s similarities with 24 (or any Washington-set thriller), the twists could be seen coming from miles away.

Angel Has Fallen wanted to be a more sincere film than the previous two. This was due to the studio series hiring Ric Roman Waugh to direct and bringing in a writing team whose credits include Gladiator and Patriot Days. They aimed to make the film a more personal level due to Banning’s issues. There was his ailing health which means he has to face the evitable, the villain who has a personal connection to Banning, and Banning’s family becoming an important part of the narrative. The filmmakers wanted to inject some heart into the franchise.

The best parts of the film were Banning’s interactions with his dad, Clay (Nick Nolte). Nolte played a Vietnam vet who had abandoned his family because of his PTSD and lives in the wilderness because of his paranoia. He brought a bit of life to the film because of his comic timing – especially when mercenaries walk into his booby traps. Clay acted a bit like a Rambo figure, someone who has suffered from warfare and stays away from society because of it. This resulted in him missing out on the important parts of life.

The action in Angel Has Fallen is of a much smaller scale than the previous two films. Waugh wanted to make a grittier film. But Angel Has Fallen has the weakest action sets pieces in the series. The use of exploding drones was a solid set-piece and it was fun to see pyrotechnics being used during the forest fight but that was about it. Angel Has Fallen’s action was pedestrian compared to another R-rated franchise, John Wick, or even within its own franchise. A sequence where Banning escaped from a vehicle was a textbook example of bad action because the lighting was non-existence, the camera was too close and the editing was too choppy. The final fight was simply two men in the 50s fighting on top of a building. Even London Has Fallen had some decent shoot outs and car chases.

Despite Angel Has Fallen being a part of a series the films barely have any connection with each other. They are all standalone films despite the marketing reminding audiences Angel Has Fallen is a sequel. And this leads to a problem because in the Fallen world Banning should be a hero who saved the President twice and the world would have seen two major cities getting blown up. Considering this, the reaction to a third Presidential assassination attempt should have just be a shrug.

To show how little continuity manners in this series, Radha Mitchell was replaced with Piper Perabo as Banning’s wife. To be fair with Perabo, she had much more to do than Mitchell ever did. The character was important for the domestic drama.

Angel Has Fallen rarely goes out of first gear, making it a boring offering in the action and thriller genres.