London Has Fallen was the most nationalist, jingoistic fun I’ve had in a long time with a movie. I say that in the most positive way possible, if that’s even possible!
I remember Olympus Has Fallen vaguely, most notably as a clone of Die Hard. It didn’t really impress me all that much, what with the rote action sequences and predictable plot, but was mostly saved by a bevy of hilariously overwrought, dumb one liners and some insane action sequences that almost made no real sense. Its B-movie vibe somehow shone through, however, and the pro-America murder spree that followed can’t be said to be un-enjoyable on a primal level. Who could have guessed they’d release a sequel to such a very, very weird film?
Thing is, Olympus Has Fallen often dipped too far into “VERY SERIOUS” territory, what with the film beginning with the president’s family dying in a horrific accident. London Has Fallen just doesn’t bother – it knows that the characters live in the make-believe world of Movietown, and simply lets things play out as unrealistically as possible. The sequel drops all pretenses of copying Die Hard, instead content to let Gerard Butler roam through the city like a 1980s action hero, just wrecking stuff and dropping one-liners everywhere. Even the people dying dramatic deaths don’t regale the main character with sorrow – instead, Chief of Staff Angela Bassett says “Make those f–kers” pay, to which Gerard Butler promptly sends any and all the Pakistani terrorists back to “F–kheadistan” where they belong. Clearly, we shouldn’t take any of this seriously. Who even talks like this, really?
From there, London Has Fallen goes for broke, running Aaron Eckhart and Gerard Butler through assassination attempts, Muslim terrorists on the streets of the United Kingdom’s biggest city, tons and tons of swearing, horrific high octane violence, and a giant gas explosion. You know a film’s taking no prisoners when a guy in a wheelchair gets shots multiple times, and that’s somehow just not enough! We did sorta kill his sister with a drone strike, but he’s a terrorist, so he needs to die. Cue the same fate for every villain in the movie. Not even Morgan Freeman cares, because he just blows up everybody left remaining who would dare try to behead the POTUS on international television!
Anyway, the movie is immensely silly, and also immensely entertaining, and I enjoyed it. Does it turn the war on terror into a video game? Yeah, sure does! Does it create a black and white situation out of a whole lot of gray? Absolutely! But does the film work? I’d say it does, because I found myself laughing and in awe of what happened on screen in equal measure – if that’s what they wanted, then they totally succeeded. If you like dumb action movies with lots of one liners – and seriously, who doesn’t? – then London Has Fallen should shoot (HA HA) straight to the top of your list.
Concussion should, theoretically, provide an interesting subject for film-making. In 2002, Dr. Bennett Omalu (more forensic pathologist, but you get the idea) does the autopsy for Philadelphia sports saint Mike Webster, and discovers a man gone made with no physical signs of mental trauma. What, exactly, caused him to go mad after an illustrious football career? It surely doesn’t stay much of a mystery for long, as several other football players show similar signs of trauma and madness – many of whom end up dead when all’s said and done. And yet, the NFL doesn’t seem to know or care that NFL players may suffer brain trauma of some kind. Omalu presents this research in a medical journal – does a giant corporation seek to fix their game so people won’t die, or crush the research with their power?
Again, the film sounds interesting from a first glance; the articles and such surrounding this story should tell you a lot of interesting facts, to say the least. Unfortunately, Concussion fails to make an engaging film out of these parts. My guess is that Sony neutered the film somewhat in order to avoid angering the NFL’s top leadership, and the only way they could get that logo without a copyright war for the ages probably comes from that very fact. So, we learn Omalu discovered and coined the term “Chronic traumatic encephalopathy”, but we just don’t learn much in the way of science behind it. We see some NFL players kill themselves, and Omalu looking very self-righteous about it (TELL THE TRUTH), but nothing happens. Does any of this lead to any change whatsoever?
I have no idea, and I would guess that’s a pretty big flaw – once the discovery portion of the “procedural” ends, we’ve left with a lot of finger-pointing and self-doubt from Will Smith. He does a fantastic job with this role, even if the script doesn’t give him anything to work with. The guy’s life just wasn’t very interesting for a film apart from this, and the movie makes that apparent! But, I don’t expect doctors to have interesting lives – I expect some explanation of what’s happening with CTE, but the movie assumes we’re too dumb to understand it so we get a whole lot of dead air instead. I do like that Omalu’s faith is prominent in the story, but it just never goes anywhere, so it feels like an exercise in a whole lot of nothing.
And then to make matters worse, the NFL gets off easy – we get to hear a lot about what makes football such a great sport…and absolutely nothing about how the NFL plans to solve the problem. That’s just how the film ends, with two kids playing football about to butt heads and probably suffer CTE in their lifetimes. Even Alec Baldwin and Al Brooks can’t save this film from lacking any kind of dynamism or an opinion on a thing that’s still happening! Stick with the articles and books on this one…
