Movie Review: Angel Has Fallen, Directed by Ric Roman Waugh

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Angel Has Fallen is the third installment in the Fallen film series, following Olympus Has Fallen (2013) and London Has Fallen (2016), which saw Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) fighting for his life while protecting the President of the United States from various terrorist threats. Perhaps feeling a tried-and-true formula was lagging, this latest film sees authorities take Secret Service agent Mike Banning into custody, accusing him of orchestrating a failed assassination attempt on now-President Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman). Predictably, Banning isn’t guilty and, after escaping from his captors, the weary and worn agent must work against time to clear his name and uncover the real threat.

It’s a shame, really, because as a standalone action film, Angel Has Fallen is objectively terrible. The draw here is the understanding of the Fallen franchise and what it does best: Gerard Butler is a charming, wisecracking Secret Service agent who pivots into an unstoppable John Wick against a ruthless terrorist force once they appear around 15 minutes into the film’s runtime.

This film, however, tries to do far too much outside its comfort zone, packing in a whole army of secondary characters and subplots that fans of the franchise won’t care about, and most of which are only relevant to those diehard fans to begin with – Piper Perabo replaces Radha Mitchell and carries her role with easy charm, Aaron Eckhart has disappeared, leaving Morgan Freeman to take up the role of President, and Holt McCallany’s last-minute dropout sees him replaced by Danny Huston.

Banning struggles with migraines, exhaustion, insomnia, and clear PTSD following two horrifying experiences in the previous films, which the film uses as leverage for explaining why his own agency immediately distrusts him following the most obvious evidence-planting ever witnessed on screen – ‘We found his fingerprints and hair in the truck filled with explosive drones,’ the FBI say, as though this mastermind wouldn’t have – I don’t know – blown up the truck with this convenient evidence onboard instead of leaving the evidential equivalent of a giant, neon sign with his name on it.

Danny Huston plays private military technology contractor turned psychopathic villain Wade Jennings, and before anyone yells ‘spoiler alert’ I’ll tell you that his immediate dialogue and appearance are taken directly from ‘Bad Guys for Dummies’, complete with repeated metaphors about Jennings and Banning ‘being lions’ and ‘craving the rush of war’. Then there’s Nick Nolte, playing Banning’s father, another slightly unhinged war veteran living alone in the wilderness for decades surrounded by enough explosives to collapse a mountain. After murdering about 100 henchman between aloof one-liners, he then seamlessly transitions to loveable, completely sane grandpa and moves in with Banning’s family.

Both of these brilliant actors seem relegated to watered-down roles that limit their on-screen impact, while Jada Pinkett Smith fulfils her role as one-dimensional, badass FBI agent for no reason at all, and Lance Reddick is reduced to a few lines and endless shots of his piercing, analytical gaze.

The script is stuffed with eye-rolling social commentary and cheap dialogue – ‘It’s the Russians, just like how they tampered with the election,’ say the Secret Service, as another Villain 101 justifies world war with a delightfully spat ‘Make America Strong Again’ – which is especially groan-inducing when these moments seem not only shoehorned in, but given the most spotlighted cinematic attention, detracting from the fact that this is a popcorn action film.

The only question around this film is whether it’s worth the price of a ticket for its promise of two-hours of action, and it delicately balances that answer depending on your taste in film and entertainment. Highlights in the action department include a genuinely terrifying, Black Mirror-inspired drone attack that feels reminiscent of the episode, Hated In The Nation, and some surprisingly graphic firefights in the closing act. Unfortunately, it seems the film trades its R16 rating on unnecessary use of language rather than brutal violence, with the former adding nothing of substance and the latter feeling pared down in crucial moments.

Ultimately, Angel Has Fallen doesn’t know what it wants to be. It could have cut away all the secondary characters and focussed on Banning’s mental and physical deterioration instead of brushing over it and fixing his PTSD by simply drinking tea with Nick Nolte, providing a film about the exhausting toll of war on the individual and their families. Instead, it packs in weak social commentary, cliché war metaphors, and flaccid action scenes like a paint-by-numbers piece without any heart, blind to the reasons many fans fell in love with the series to begin with.

~Oxford Lamoureaux

Watch the trailer here:

Oxford Lamoureaux
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