Review: LONDON HAS FALLEN is Xenophobic and Mindless - A Terrible Combination

Not to step on my own review, but I think LONDON HAS FALLEN can be summed up in one particular exchange between Aaron Eckhart and Gerard Butler late in the film:

"Was that really necessary?"

"No."

And that about says it. LONDON HAS FALLEN is not really necessary, but it's here now so let's talk about what we've got.

The sequel to OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN, not that you will have needed to see it to follow this film, finds Secret Service Agent Mike Banning (Butler) back again at U.S. President Benjamin Asher's (Eckhart) side. The unexpected death of the British Prime Minister means that Asher and 40 other world leaders will have to travel to London for the funeral, a "last minute," "hard to plan" nightmare according to Secret Service Director Lynne Jacobs (Angela Bassett). And based on the trailer, based on the title, she's right - the so-called "most protected event on Earth" quickly becomes a bloodbath as Aamir Barkawi (Alon Aboutboul), number six on the FBI's Most Wanted List and a man who believes "vengeance must always be profound and absolute," unleashes an unthinkable attack that will culminate with the death of the American president streamed live on the internet - unless someone (Banning) can stop him.

The best and worst thing about a film like LONDON HAS FALLEN, directed by Babak Najafi, is that it is easily digestible. It's brisk and bombastic. It delivers on gory, over the top action. Butler and Eckhart, an apparent graduate of the Bill Pullman School of Presidential Acting, have a great, quippy chemistry. And there is enough in the way of explosions, car chases, bullets, knives, grenades, rocket launchers, fists ... concrete pillars, just anything that can be used as a weapon (which for super American Mike Banning is practically everything) that the momentum never seems to stop.

But I always come back to this: how are we still swallowing lines like, "Every one of their guys is a terrorist asshole until proven otherwise" without scrunching our nose and turning our head away? Why aren't we flinching when the bad guys are grouped together and described as a "United Nations of every-fing-body who hates us"?

You know, after September 11th, the Pentagon commissioned a group of Hollywood directors to come up with some sample terrorist attacks and ways to fight them; at the same time, the Bush White House was encouraging Hollywood to have the "right" ideological message in their films. A movie like LONDON HAS FALLEN just makes me think that Najafi and the writers (Katrin Benedikt, Christian Gudegast, Creighton Rothenberger, and Chad St. John) just got that message - 15 years later.

The film is xenophobic, and it's not just the characters played by Aboutboul or Waleed Zuaiter (both turn in excellent performances, by the way) or the rest of the nameless (mostly brown) faces that surround them. The French are obnoxious, the Canadians are boring and responsible, the Italian is lecherous, etc. The Russians, who skipped the funeral, escape this one unscathed. I guess sometimes it pays to be a frenemy.

The point is, while it's fun to see a non-American city get destroyed every once in awhile, LONDON HAS FALLEN is no more than terrorsploitation, xenophobic destruction porn that tugs on all the right strings. Unfortunately, those strings are attached to the lowest common (American) denominator.

LONDON HAS FALLEN, starring Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett, Charlotte Riley, and Alon Aboutboul, is rated R for strong violence and language throughout.

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