TITLE & REVIEW

American Assassin (2017)

The protagonist is the survivor of a terrorist attack. He decides to become a vigilante, like the Schwartzenegger character in Collateral Damage . Of course, the USA is actively waging an assassination campaign against suspected Jihadis so he is at more risk of being collateral damage in a CIA drone strike than he is of getting killed by the terrorists.

Our hero is recruited by CIA chief Saana Lathan , who has him trained by US Navy Seal Michael Keaton ( Birdman ). Keaton is basically the same working-class hard-ass he played in Spiderman: Homecoming ).

The main storyline consists of retrieving a stolen nuke that is in the hands of East European arms dealers. Yes, just like the plot of Bad Company (2002) . This time the arch-villain is Taylor Kitsch ( Battleships ), a young American with Navy Seal training and a grudge against the hero's mentor. Yes, the cliched personal grudge subplot has to be squeezed in.

American Ultra (2015)

CIA middle-manager Connie Britton gets word that her pet project is about to be terminated by office rival Topher Grace ( Spiderman 3 ) - with extreme prejudice.

The Asset, Jesse Eisenberg ( Zombieland ), is a slacker who lives in a small town. He spends all day getting high with his girlfriend ( Kristen Stewart ).

The result is a more light-hearted version of the Jason Bourne series, without the brutal realism.

Hardcore Henry

In an era when every mainstream Hollywood action movie is dumbed down to a PG-12 rating, and the old Hayes Code principle of A man can get shot, but he cannot bleed is revived, this movie declares its ultra-violent status in its intro. The title character wakes up in a Robocop style lab, and is given a general briefing. Then the mayhem starts.

The supervillain is an albino with telekinetic powers. He is evidently the only one in the world with this or any other superpower. However, he also wants to have an army of killer cyborgs. He kidnaps Henry's wife, the scientist who can build his cyborgs for him. Henry must get his wife back and save the day.

Henry's only help comes from Uncle Frank (Sharlto Copely - District 9 ), who appears in a number of guises. Every time Frank apparently gets killed on-screen, he quickly re-appears in a different guise.

If anything, the film that this is most reminiscent of is John Wick . The most startling difference is that John Wick would have given everyone a headshot. Henry is not a professional killer, he just blunders through with brute force and ignorance.

The story is told entirely from Henry's perspective, so it basically looks like a video-log of someone's First Person Shooter game. The only other first-person movie in recent years is slasher-movie Maniac , which is more like an extended Giallo killer-POV scene than a video game.

Only God Forgives

An American gangster (Ryan Gosling - Blade Runner 2049 ) living in South-East Asia has to avenge the death of his brother, killed on the orders of a vigilante cop.

This is a stylish effort reminiscent of Stoker . It embraces the ethos of the horror genre, but without the supernatural trappings. The trailers make this out to be a low-budget yet mainstream thriller, but in fact it is more of an art-house movie. Other films that have suffered a backlash of poor word of mouth due to mainstream movie-goers feeling tricked into watching something intellectually challenging include The Grey and Spring Breakers. So if you hated those films, you probably will not like this one either.

Spooks: The Greater Good (2015)

This is a strange transatlantic thriller, a failed mixture of ingredients. The title is not a racial slur against the KKK (famous for their pointy ghost costumes) but rather a slang term for CIA spies, appropriated by MI5 (UK Counter-Intelligence).

The film starts with an Islamic terrorist getting broken out of MI5 custody before he can get handed over to the CIA. The security is remarkably lax, but luckily the terrorists are remarkably non-murderous. However, Harry (Peter Firth - Chill Factor ) was in charge so he takes the blame. Then he apparently suicides himself …

Kit Harrington gets recalled from Moscow to investigate. He started as Jon Snow in Game of Thrones , then became the Spook’s Apprentice in Seventh Son … now he is Harry’s former protégé. Promotion indeed!

Harry claims that the team was sabotaged from the inside, that there is a Mole and that only an outsider like Harrington can be trusted. Real Cold War stuff, straight out of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (see the recent underwhelming remake for further reference). It looks more like Civil Service incompetence, but if it adds glamour to imply a conspiracy …

The problem is that this is an extended episode put up on the big screen. The cast are good, but they are a group of television actors. Firth was the bad guy in action flick Chill Factor back in 1999, and it was so much more action-packed than this. Recent effort Big Game featuring Samuel L. Jackson successfully blended opposing genres (Finnish Art-house and Hollywood blockbuster), with pleasing results, while his previous effort Kingsman was an entertaining big-budget parody of the Secret Agent genre. Spooks, however, is a modern-day (cheap) update on Tinker, Tailor … There are no car chases, the SWAT team pops up every now and again but there are no shoot-outs, and the most filming exotic location was the Isle of Man!

The Hitman's Bodyguard (2017)

Interpol Agent Elodie Yung (AKA Elektra) hires her ex-boyfriend Ryan Reynolds (AKA Deadpool ) to protect her star witness, Samuel L Jackson (Nick Fury in Marvel Avengers ).

A Serbian warlord (Gary Oldman - Batman Begins ) is on trial at the Hague, and his put a contract out on all witnesses. Jackson has been persuaded to testify, since his wife ( Salma Hayek ) is also in Interpol custody.

The two bickering rivals team up against the main villain. The result is basically a buddy-cop movie, although the amazing cast makes it well above average.

The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard (2021)

Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds - Deadpool ) is in therapy after surviving the events of The Hitman's Bodyguard . To recover, he goes for vacation in Capri. Unfortunately this is disrupted by Sonia Kincaid ( Salma Hayek ), who wants Bryce to help save her husband - Bryce's arch-rival, the hitman Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson - Marvel Avengers ) - from mobster Carlo (Miltos Yerolemou - Game of Thrones ).

Meanwhile, Aristotles Papadopolous (Antonio Banderas ) is plotting to destroy the infrastructure of the EU. He has his own super-team trio: Magnusson (Tom Hopper - Black Sails ) the bodyguard, Zento (Kristofer Kamiyasu - ) the hitman and Veronika ( Gabriella Wright ) the girlfriend.

Interpol Agent Bobby O'Neill (Frank Grillo - Captain America: Winter Soldier ) conscripts the hitman, the wife and the bodyguard into helping to defeat the supervillain. To do this they end up driving around Italy in a road trip punctuated with ultra-violent shootouts which has a massive bodycount but no personal consequences. The trip leads on to some exploration of their backstories, which deepens them as characters.

The high point of the movie is an unexpected cameo by Morgan Freeman, who even delivers a monologue that parodies one of his speeches in Shawshank Redemption.

The Continental (2023)

John Wick (2014)

John Wick (Keanu Reeves - Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure ) is a hitman who has retired. The call to adventure arrives in the form of a Russian mobster (Alfie Allen - Game of Thrones ) who kicks his puppy. John Wick seeks revenge against the puppy-murderer, even though this means taking on the entire Russian Mob.

The universe has been well thought-out, and may have been created with a franchise in mind. There is a network of freelance assassins, including such familiar faces as Willem Dafoe ( Spiderman ) and Adrianne Palicki .

Much like the Cold War spies in the thriller novel Brotherhood of the Rose, the assassins work out of a network of safe houses run by Ian McShane ( Golden Compass ) and Lance Reddick ( Lost ).

John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)

This is a memorably stylish action thriller. The visual flair includes slick subtitles which supplement the dialogue when the characters use a variety of languages (including sign language).

It starts with John Wick (Keanu Reeves - Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure ) finishing the first movie's storyline by a confrontation with Russian mobster Peter Stormare ( Armageddon ).

Once again, the world's greatest hit-man tries to quit. However, he is called out of retirement again. A Mafia godfather and his androgynous hench-person ( Ruby Rose ) coerce Wick into taking one last mission. This mission causes him to come up against an old rival who has a similar skill level - Cassian (Common, who had a similar role in Run All Night ).

Naturally, there are double-crosses. Wick goes on the run, hunted by every assassin in the network. Luckily he is a firm believer in gender equality, because he takes on women in brutal hand-to-hand combat. In the interests of diversity he also gets jumped by a sumo wrestler in a battle reminiscent of the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

It turns out that the Mafia are not the only gang in town. Laurence Fishburne ( Event Horizon ) pops up as another organised crime leader who has a grudge against the Syndicate.

The story is left open for a third chapter. And in all fairness, this is a good idea because this film is actually better than the original.

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2020)

This takes up just after the conclusion of the previous movie. John Wick is due for excommunication at exactly 6pm, so he has just enough time to find some medical assistance. He also assembles a revolver from mis-matched parts, in a gratuitous homage to The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Wick goes from fight scene to fight scene. He pauses briefly to get some medical aid, although this only patches up his newly-acquired wounds and ignores the ones from the previous movie. Despite his ever-increasing number of injuries, and one of which could potentially let him bleed to death, he manages to constantly defeat multiple enemies simultaneously.

The Bowery, under the command of the King (Laurence Fishburne - The Matrix ), goes along with the decree of Excomunicado. However, like the Continental's manager (Ian McShane - Golden Compass ) he is deemed an ally of Wick and is given seven days to sort out his affairs.

Wick has some more allies, who have not been previously introduced. It turns out that before he joined the US Marine Corps he was a child soldier for the Russian Mafia - well, Belarus anyway. He gets reluctant assistance from his old boss ( Anjelica Huston ). Later on he meets another ally, Sofia ( Halle Berry ), who also owes him a favour. She takes him to see Barrados (Jerome Flynn - Game of Thrones ), the member of the High Table who mints the Continental's special coins.

There is a bounty of fifteen million on Wick's head. However, the adjudicator calls in extra support in the form of a Fugu chef (Mark Dacascos - The Crow: Stairway To Heaven ) and his two ninjas. This leads on to even more violence. That said, this movie is basically a constant series of extended action setpieces interspersed by brief snatches of exposition.

John makes a deal to get his Excommunicado lifted. However, when he gets back to New York the bounty is still on his head. Even the adjudicator's chef is still on the hunt. Luckily they can stab a man to death in the middle of a train station without any bystanders so much as blink, then perform a few more kills in a parking garage without Security calling the cops. Yes, suspension of disbelief may be possible when the trail of bodies is in a secured area or a Third World country ...

The never-ending fight scenes are faster-paced than ever. This seems to be due to the use of CGI, specifically the addition of the muzzle flashes in the shootouts. The give-away is that Wick and Charon (Lance Reddick - Fringe ) rarely if ever pump the action of their pump-action shotguns. This reliance on post-production means the action scenes can be rehearsed and shot much more quickly, with less emphasis on safety that would have been necessitated by the use of blank ammo.

This movie is set up for a couple of sequel. One is a conclusion to Wick's war against the High Table. The other is a solo stand-alone spin-off starring Halle Berry . Well, twenty years ago we were promised a Jinx spin-off from Die Another Day , and unfortunately all we got was the Daniel Craig reboot of the Bond franchise. It is about time she got the action movie franchise she deserves!

John Wick 4 (2023)

Ballerina (2023)

The King's Man (2021)

This is a prequel to the Kingsman series, and starts during the Boer War in 1902. Orlando Oxford (Ralph Fiennes - Harry Potter ) is a decorated British war hero who has become a pacifist, and promises his wife he will keep their son Conrad Oxford (Harris Dickinson) from serving in the military. The old man lays on his opposition to the old motto Dulce et decorum est Pro patri amori, and even quotes the Wilfred Owen poem ahistorically and without accreditation. Although the servants Shola (Djimon Hounsou - Deep Rising ) and Polly ( Gemma Arterton ) train Conrad in knife-fighting and sharp-shooting respectively, they respect the boss's wishes. However, Orlando's old friend General Kitchener (Charles Dance - Game of Thrones ) pops up with his aide, Morton (Matthew Goode - Watchmen ), and asks for help.

The heroes need a villain to defeat. Luckily, a mysterious super-villain named The Shepherd has set Queen Victoria's grandsons against each other ... causing the First World War. His conspiracy involves Gavrillo Princip killing Archduke Ferdinand, the mad monk Grigori Rasputin (Rhys Ifans - Hannibal Rising ) influencing the Russian Czar, Erik Jan Hanussen (Daniel Brühl - Captain America: Civil War ) influencing the German Kaiser, and Mata Hari ( Valerie Pachner ) seducing the American President.

The First World War setting has similarities to the recent Wonder Woman (2018) , and the villainous plot has its fair share of cliches - making this a bit reminiscent of the disappointing League of Extraordinary Gentleman . In all fairness, it is nice to see Feinnes and Arterton get a chance at spy-movie heroics of the type they were both denied in the Daniel Craig/James Bond movies. However, what makes this really work is the father-son relationship - the pacifist trying to overcome his son's thirst for adventure. That theme sets this above the previous two films in the franchise.

Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)

Like Kick-Ass , this is directed by Matthew Vaughn from a script by Jane Goldman, based on a comic by Mark Millar. Confusingly, the title does not refer to the rank in the British Army. No, it refers to a clothing brand that the film-makers set up to cash in on merchandising opportunities from the film!

The story concerns a group of aristocratic super-spies - Arthur (Michael Caine - Interstellar ), Merlin (Mark Strong - Starlight ), Lancelot (Jack Davenport - Ultraviolet ) and Galahad (Colin Firth - ). Galahad recruits a young chav named Eggsy (Taron Egerton - Sing ), son of the man who once saved his life. For a large part of we follow Egsy’s adventures as a trainee Kingsman surrounded by arrogant toffee-nosed twits.

Meanwhile, Galahad and the others trace a missing scientist (Mark Hamill - Star Wars: ANH ) to a crazy Billionaire, Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson - The Hitman's Bodyguard ) and his hench-person Gazelle ( Sophia Boutella ).

Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)

The Kingsman Agency is back in business. Eggsy (Taron Egerton - Sing ) is now the head agent, and his girlfriend is the Swedish Princess who delivered the punchline in the previous film's climax.

This year the villain is Poppy ( Julianne Moore ), a cheerful businesswoman who has created a world monopoly on illegal drugs. She has poisoned the drugs with a deadly virus, and threatens to withold the cure unless her demands are met.

Poppy's first step is to take out the only ones who can challenge her - the Kingsmen. Eggsy and his sole remaining ally travel to the USA to meet their allies, the Statesmen. This means they get to team up with some bankable stars - Channing Tatum ( GI Joe: Rise of Cobra ) and Halle Berry .

Tatum disappears from the movie for a long period. Perhaps he was off making Logan Lucky, another movie that was released about the same time as this one. Coincidentally both those movies used the song Country Roads in moving scenes towards the end.

Argylle (2023)

Now You See Me (2013)

This is a stylish thriller based around Magic and illusion. The story concerns a quartet of stage magicians, including a card-trick expert (Jesse Eisenberg - Zombieland ), an escapologist ( Isla Fisher ) and a hypnotist (Woody Harrelson - Natural Born Killers ). The youngest (and least well-known) of the crew is Dave Franco ( Warm Bodies ), best known from Scrubs: Med School.

The crew of Magicians commit a high-profile robbery, and are investigated by FBI Agent Mark Ruffalo ( 13 Going on 30 ).

The Magicians are being manipulated by a criminal genius with a grudge. This somehow involves Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman (colleagues from The Dark Knight ). Eisenberg and Harrelson previously teamed up in Zombieland . This film is not as good as either of those two. Ironically, this got a sequel while Zombieland 2: Double Tap did not appear until ten years after the original.

Now You See Me 2 (2016)

The previous film ended with the most predictable non-twist imaginable. This new movie is set eighteen months after the last one, and is basically more of the same. The Horsemen have been on the run from the FBI for the last year and a half, which means they moved back into their old apartments in New York and just stopped doing high-profile magic tricks. Harrelson and Franco have passed time by teaching each other their skills, but Eisenberg is frustrated that the Real magic-users have not delivered their promised magicks. Hadley ( Isla Fisher ) has quit the team, necessary in real life because the actress was pregnant. Instead of re-casting the part the Producers inserted an entirely new character, played by a girl who was in Cloverfield . This is ironic because the new character is quickly slotted into a pre-existing criminal conspiracy, while we are led to believe that Hadley has returned to normal life despite being on the FBI's Most Wanted!

The Horsemen are recruited by Daniel Radcliffe, who seems to have traded places with Eisenberg. Radcliffe was the Wizard Harry Potter , while Eisenberg was an Internet Billionaire in Social Network . Now their roles are reversed, with Radcliffe as an English Zuckerberg and Eisenberg as a New York Potter. Strangely, the new versions are more unlikable than the originals.

The film's second act takes place in Macau, presumably to make it more accessible to the Chinese audience. Yes, this is a blatant example of money-grubbing. The third act is set in London, which is left relatively unscathed compared to after the previous two films set there ( London Has Fallen and Independence Day: Resurgence ).

While following the format of the original, this new effort incorporates a few twists that re-write the existing backstory. That is the real problem with it - the complete lack of logic.

Olympus Has Fallen (2013)

Banning (Gerard Butler - Lara croft: Cradle Of Life ) and Forbes (Dylan McDermott - ) are Secret Service bodyguards for the US President (Aaron Eckhart - The Core ) and the First Lady ( Ashley Judd ). Unfortunately they tend to drive too fast on icy roads with low visibility and large wildlife prone to stray into the path of oncoming traffic. Suffice to say, it all goes badly wrong.

A year later, Banning is working at a desk job in Washington DC. The good news is he can spend more time with his wife ( Radha Mitchell ). The bad news is that his old job has been taken by a young whipper-snapper named Roma (Cole Hauser - 2 Fast, 2 Furious ), who is partnered with Agent Jones (Tory Kittles - Colony ).

A Korean delegation visits the White House. At the same time, a heavily-armed aircraft attacks the building and destroys the rooftop defences that keep it secure. The next wave is an infantry attack by forty commandos disguised as tourists. Their tactics are worthy of the Napoleonic era - they stand shoulder to shoulder in a line and walks slowly across the lawn of the White House. Luckily the Secret Service also has unrealistic tactics, and instead of shooting from cover they charge into direct fire. The third wave is armoured vehicles with heavy weaponry to fortify the captured building.

With POTUS compromised, the Speaker of the House (Morgan Freeman - Now You See Me ) takes over. Well, the USA would be better with a Prime Minister instead of a Presidency. The PM is advised by the head of the Secret Service ( Angela Bassett ) and the Head of the Joint Chiefs (Robert Forster - The Black Hole (1979) ). Their plan is to send SEALs (not a Delta Force team) in by helicopter, even though such attacks usually fail in movies in this genre. Perhaps we can chalk this up to genre blindness, although it might also be characterised as a lack of common sense.

Banning took advantage of the confusion, and shot his way into the White House. Well, all he had to do was shoot some people on the back. Now he has to take on the twenty surviving commandoes, plus the heavy weapons team. Can he go all Die Hard in the White House? Well, despite the fact that he can be defeated by a car's seat-belt he does have a certain skill at stabbing people in the brain. This is not really something that is in keeping with the profession of Law Enforcement, especially in the modern era when police brutality has spawned the BLM movement.

The main villain, Kang (Rick Yune - Die Another Day ), is not afforded the screen time or characterisation of Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman - Harry Potter Franchise ). At least he is given a name and some dialogue, cliched as it is. The truth is that he and his henchmen are generic and interchangeable. They are presented as the Yellow Peril, a racist caricature of North Koreans as murderous terrorists who are so keen on destroying the USA that they will create a nuclear disaster of global proportions. Of course, the intended audience do not care about the rest of the world. This movie succeeded while White House Down flopped because it is a dumb action movie which panders to American xenophobia.

London Has Fallen (2016)

This is a sequel to Olympus Has Fallen , and is more or less a carbon-copy of the original. It is set in London, but a lot of the filming was done in Bulgaria. The Producers include Avi Lerner, responsible for the slew of B-Movies that kick-started the Bulgarian film studio industry

An International Arms Dealer, basically a middle-man for all-American manufacturers like Colt and Lockheed Martin, is targeted for assassination by the USA. They cannot take him in a fair fight, so they decide to blow up his daughter's wedding. The man behind this is President of USA Aaron Eckhart ( The Core ), best known as the supervillain Two-Face in The Dark Knight . He is protected by Banning (Gerald Butler - Lara Croft: Cradle of Life ).

This film could be taken as a damning indictment of American foreign policy. Two-Face tries to weasel his way out of taking responsibility for his actions. He claims the G8 authorised the slaughter. If this were true, why did the Russian and Chinese Presidents not get targeted at the funeral too? The other excuse is I did not know your family would be there. At his daughter's wedding? Where the hell else would they be?

Banning delivers a monologue to the other team, making references to We and us. Why? He is a Scotsman! The killers only want Two-Face - and if they kill him, the Veep will take over. Justice will be done, and everyone will be promoted a rank. Problem solved!

Angel Has Fallen (2019)

Mike Banning (Gerard Butler - Lara Croft: Cradle of Life ) has happily settle down with his wife Laura ( Piper Perabo ). To pass his spare time he hangs out with old army buddy Wade Jennings (Danny Houston - American Horror Story ), a top military contractor. But Banning is in no state to go back into combat, because the events of the previous two movies have left him with damage to his brain and spinal column. Luckily this medical condition is only mentioned when it is convenient to the plot.

Banning still has his day job, working for Secret Service boss David Gentry (Lance Reddick - Fringe ) to protect President Trumbull (Morgan Freeman - Shawshank Redemption ). This new President has decided to reverse the policies of his predecessor, by ending US military commitments abroad. The bad news is that this opens up new opportunities for the private military contractors. Sam Wilcox (Michael Landes - Special Unit 2 ) and Vice President Kirby (Tim Blake Nelson - ) are both in the loop.

Someone stages a hi-tech attack on the President. FBI Agent Thompson ( Jada Pinkett Smith ) discovers an orgy of evidence that all points to Banning. Even though Banning is a highly trained Federal Agent, Thompson assumes that he is stupid enough to leave mountains of evidence behind. The Angel of the title is Banning himself, the President's guardian angel who has fallen from grace.

Before long our hero is on the run from the cops, trying to prove his innocence before the real killers strike again. Banning hides out with his estranged father (Nick Nolte - Hulk ). Despite being in even worse state than his son, both mentally and physically, these two battle-damaged combat veterans take out lots of baddies. Typical action-adventure stuff ensues. We are meant to believe that the US Secret Service's SWAT unit could be easily outgunned by a handful of mercenaries. The TV show 24 did this so much better, and that was twenty years ago.

For some reason, despite this being a hard-edged thriller the film-makers chose to tag a comedy scene on at the end.

Geostorm (2017)

In the near future, global warming sends Earth's weather into mayhem. A scientist (Gerard Butler - Lara Croft: Cradle of Life ) invents a system to control all weather on Earth. Within a few years the world has constructed a web of satellites controlled by a massive space station. Unfortunately, politics then gets involved. A US Congressman (Richard Schiff - Sarah Connor Chronicles ) has Butler removed from command of the project.

The US Congress has undue influence over the project, because they (and not the Chinese or the United Nations) paid for the project. Despite this massive leap forward in technology, there are only a couple of visible changes. Firstly, Cape Canaveral has a dozen next-generation space shuttles all lined up and ready to launch at any time. Secondly, driverless cars are now mainstream. This must free up a lot of taxi-drivers, who can be re-employed to make fuel and spare parts for the space industry.

Freak weather events indicate that the system might be faulty. The US President (Andy Garcia - Passengers ) and Pentagon insider (Ed Harris - The Abyss ) send Butler back to the space station to investigate. With the help of a computer nerd (Robert Sheehan - Season Of The Witch ) he uncovers sabotage.

Back on Earth, the hero's brother (Jim Sturgess - Cloud Atlas ) works with his own tech-support nerd ( Zasie Beets ) to uncover the conspiracy behind the sabotage. It turns out that someone wants to weaponise the system, and use it to conquer the world. Or rather, as in the plot of The Spy Who Loved Me , to destroy the bits they do not rule.

The only way to override the Space Station's self-destruct is to abduct the one person who has final control of it. The bad news is, that person is the President of the United States. The good news is that the head of his bodyguards is the brother's girlfriend ( Abbie Cornish ). What a lucky coincidence.

The whole movie is a bit of an anti-climax. Despite Butler being the established action-adventure star, most of the on-screen action is handled by Cornish's character. And if we must compare this to Salt , another female-led action movie where a woman must breach POTUS' security, this is very disappointing indeed.

Finally, the station is evacuated and Butler is the last one left aboard. Can Ground Control get him safely down? Unfortunately this is not exactly The Martian .

Greenland (2020)

Plane (2023)

White House Down (2013)

Our hero (Channing Tatum - GI Joe ) takes his daughter to the White House for a free tour. The Secret Service that secures the building unit is run by a few familiar faces - Maggie Gyllenhall , Jake Weber ( Medium ) and James Woods ( Vampire$ ). Predictably, one of them is a traitor. Probably the only time a villain went after POTUS without relying on an inside man is Line Of Fire (1993) .

The main attack force is led by a former Delta Force operator (Jason Clarke - Terminator: Genisys ), who was left for dead by the President. The hostages are kept prisoner by a white supremacist named Killian, who blew up a Post Office because it employed some black people. The villains' tech support is ex-NSA nerd Skip Tyler (Jimi Simpson - Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter ), whose grudge is against Apple Corporation's music-sharing policy. Yes, they are all disgruntled white American males, which counterbalances the generic white American masculinity of the protagonist..

The hero ends up stuck in an elevator shaft, and then strips off his shirt so he can walk around in his vest. Yes, this movie has more than its fair share of homages to Die Hard . The biggest difference in this respect is that instead of trying to save his wife ( Rachel Lefevre ), it is his pre-teen daughter who is the damsel in distress.

The US President is Jamie Foxx ( Stealth ), mirroring the real-life African American President Barrack Obama. He is an action hero in his own right, like David Palmer in 24.

So why did this movie fail and Olympus Has Fallen succeed? Well, the main difference between the two is the subtext. In this film the villain's political motivation is to end the US President's policy of peace in the Middle East. The bad guys are bland white men, the enemy within. In contrast, the other movie has a more simplistic message about the USA being under siege by evil foreigners. Basically, the obvious assumption is that Americans would rather see foreigners as bad guys than their own kind.

Soon