London has Fallen

This American action thriller is a sequel to Antoine Fuqua’s 2013 film, “Olympus Has Fallen”. It is about terrorism unleashed in the city of London at a gathering of the world’s Political Leaders. The Leaders are in London to attend the funeral of a British Prime Minister, who died in mysterious circumstances. Most of the cast have appeared in the original film.

While in London at the Prime Minister’s funeral, Secret Service Agent, Mike Banning (Gerard Butler), is assigned to guard the President of the USA, Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart). Banning’s wife, Leah (Radha Mitchell) is about to give birth to his child, but duty calls him to accompany his President to Britain. There is a plot to assassinate all of the attending world leaders who have come to the funeral. Without any warning, five world leaders are killed immediately, major city landmarks, such as Westminster Cathedral, are destroyed, and the President of America narrowly escapes assassination. Banning escapes with the President to various “safe” places, which prove to be not all that safe.

The film draws its credibility from the arousal of paranoia about the threat of middle-eastern terror. It is heavily cliche-ridden and excessively violent. Bombs explode, bodies fly everywhere, and fake police mow down people in the streets of London, while the leaders of nations are killed in gruesome ways. The film starts off calmly, and then descends quickly to offer hard-line support to its advertised subtitle: “Prepare for Bloody Hell”.

The movie is unashamedly US-centric and shows America patriotically saving the world on another country’s soil. But it is an orgy of destruction in which the salient message is how best to search and destroy. Its tone is cold, vindictive and sadistic, and London is made the background environment for massive body carnage. The sheer number of people being gunned down or stabbed in the streets of London is immense.

The secret of it all lies in the vengeance of a powerful Pakistani arms-dealer, who vows retribution for a US drone strike that targeted him while he was attending his daughter’s wedding. The wedding went fatally wrong, his daughter was killed, and he wants vengeance on the West and especially on the US President, who ordered the drone strike.

Back in Washington, the Vice President (Morgan Freeman) is at a loss to know what to do, despite having Special Agents around him (Melissa Leo, Jackie Earle Haley, and Robert Forster). Back in Britain, Banning proves himself a hero, but not before the city of London is virtually reduced to rubble. The Houses of Parliament go the same way as Westminster Cathedral, and the scenes of destruction are very impressive. However, action scenes in the film are associated with a pounding musical score; the plot is unwieldy; and the action is repetitive. The whole movie is made to feed on racism, and it dwells on repeated acts of violence.

The film could have been provocatively satirical, or might have ruminated intelligently on terrorist-related themes, but it doesn’t. Instead it is a revenge movie, that is fiercely nationalistic, and forcibly sells the message – “vengeance must always be profound and absolute”.

Basically, this is alarmist cinema that sensationalises the slaughter of people for patriotic reasons. It has moments of drama that manage to emerge amidst the blazing guns and carnage, but offers very limited entertainment overall.