Film Review - Angel Has Fallen (15)

We're lions - and there ain't nothin' gonna change that.

Angel Has Fallen completes one of the more unlikely modern cinema trilogies. In 2013 it was Olympus, i.e. the White House, that did the falling, as Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) rescued the US President from the clutches of kidnapping terrorists. Then in 2016 it was the turn of London to collapse, our hero once again salvaging the day as the English capital's most photogenic landmarks tumbled around the ears of assembled world leaders in a CGI firestorm. Now it's Banning himself who's destined for a fall, as he protects a new leader of the free world in President Trumbull (Morgan Freeman). It should be an old and tired rehash and I was bracing myself for such. But you know what? It's not a bad evening at the cinema - at all.

This new story finds Banning a beaten-down mess from all the injuries he's sustained on previous adventures. Old Service pal Wade Jennings (Danny Huston) is trying to get him back on track with some off-the-record training, while neither Mike's wife or indeed his President know that he's popping pain-killers like candy. It all comes to a head when he leads operations on a Presidential fishing trip that goes very wrong indeed. A powerful force - possibly the Russian government - wants the President dead, and are organised enough to make Banning take the fall for it. But if they think he'll roll over easily, hey - they're reckoning with the wrong guy.

This is a potboiler action thriller that knows its limitations and strengths, and which plays to the latter. Rather than up the ante following the 2016 terrorist blitzing of London, it keeps the mayhem relatively restrained, although a lethal drone strike early on demonstrates that proceedings are going to be both high-tech and bloody. The screenplay draws out the political elements convincingly enough, keeping things taut and fast-paced, and focusing at all times on its central character's developing plight.

It's all helmed by Ric Roman Waugh, one of those stuntmen-turned-directors, who deals well enough with the gritty set-pieces, even if he resorts a little too much to edgy hand-held shots and fast editing. David Buckley provides a pumping, drum-heavy soundtrack, there's a steely-gray colour palette to match and even if the plot resorts to familiar thriller tropes (you'll easily guess which characters aren't to be trusted), its comparative groundedness keeps you involved.

The other department in which the movie betters its predecessors is in the depth of casting. Butler's tough-guy lead has added vulnerability to make him more relatable and Freeman is - well - President-you-wish. But there's also Jada Pinkett Smith as a brisk and determined FBI agent, Tim Blake Nelson as the morally ambiguous Vice President and John Wick's Lance Reddick as a high-ranking Secret Service bodyguard. And Huston is having a lot of fun as Mike's former comrade-in-arms. But most welcome of all is Nick Nolte - crustier and more knobbly than ever, with a vocal register that could grate cheese. Who he plays I'll keep secret, but his interations with Butler in the Appalachian woods are choice, taking the film to a whole other funnier and better level.

There's not a lot of critical love out there for Has Fallen 3, with many dismissing it the flogging of a B-movie franchise. I think it's better than that - a nuts-and-bolts thriller for sure, but with fewer preposterous explosions than before and a greater sense of fun. Maybe Harrison Ford did it better twenty-five years ago, but Gerard Butler has a battered charm of his own, and this time around - with such good company - it really works.

Gut Reaction: Consistently invovled, some unexpectedly big laughs halfway through and even a little bit moved at the end.

Memorable Moment: Danger! Forest fires!

Ed's Verdict: 6.5/10. An unremarkable but solid piece of action entertainment, helped out by a battery of good performances, decent set-pieces and some welcome humour.