Ben Oliver

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film

Angel Has Fallen

It is our moments of struggle that define us.
18 June 2023

The third in one of Hollywood’s most un-called for franchises. If you remember in this trilogy Gerard Butler plays a Secret Service agent tasked with protecting the president of America when the shit hits the fan. In Angel Has Fallen there’s an assassination attempt on the president’s life and Gerard manages to get framed for it, prompting him to go on the run.

Much like the other films, this screenplay is fuelled entirely by predictable plot twists and tired old tropes. The writing is particularly bad in this one.

It’s propped up by some tense and pretty well thought out action sequences that, surprisingly perhaps, don’t ask the audience to suspend their disbelief very often.

There’s a big cast alongside Gerard. Morgan Freeman is the president along with Danny Huston, Lance Reddick, Jada Pinkett Smith, Nick Nolte and Tim Blake Nelson in other roles. All of this talent gets pretty much thrown in the bin with dodgy dialogue and dull characters.

Pretty tedious stuff, but it doesn’t insult your intelligence and it’s mostly entertaining when it’s time to get down to shooty-shooty-fisty-fisty time.

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