Olympus Has Fallen (2013)

Clearly the Movie Gods are reasonably appeased. In the time since the burst hemorrhoid that was "A Good Day to Die Hard" sloshed it's reeking mass through theaters a little more than a month ago, I may or may not have offered up a blood sacrifice. I'm not saying I did, but I could have. Had I done so, it would have been in exchange for their mercy and benevolence by giving us a film that could, at least in some small way, compensate for the death of one of the greatest action franchises of all time.

I'm not saying that "Olympus Has Fallen" was of the quality of the classic "Die Hard" films, but you can at least imagine in your mind that this would have been an alright one had it stared Bruce Willis. It's like the chintzy coffee mug your work may give you in exchange for cleaning the bathroom floors with your face for 15 hours on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It's not really much of anything, and far too little too late after something nightmarishly horrible but hey, it's something.

So, to whatever dark deity accepted whatever sacrifice I may have hypothetically made, I offer my thanks. Be sure to leave your business card so I can properly worship you in the future. But next time do you think you could perhaps manage to do a little bit more than remake "Air Force One?" It's just going to make me want to watch "Air Force One" again. Not "Olympus Has Fallen." Hell, you even ripped off scenes like the "shooting the secretary" bit. I feel like I'm already watching "Air Force One," but without the awesomeness of Harrison Ford.

It is more subtle, though.

I realize that it may sound like I'm coming down too harshly on "Olympus Has Fallen." I don't want to make that impression, because this isn't a particularly bad movie by any means. As far as ridiculous, patriotic chest-thumping action movies go, it was fine. I've seen it done worse, although as one could infer from the previous paragraph, I've also seen it done better. At least I've seen it done with a far more memorable villain, which counts for a lot. But that's getting ahead of ourselves.

"Olympus Has Fallen" follows Mike (Gerard Butler), a former Secret Service agent who is forced to single-handedly save the President (Aaron Eckhart) and therefore the world after the White House comes under attack by North Korean insurgents. Of course there is hostage taking, executions, frantic conference calls as generals try to get some GODDAMN ANSWERS, torn American flags flapping in the wind, nuclear missiles, some one-liners, and all the other things we except from a movie like this involved. It's all pretty by the books, which doesn't make it bad, but as one could probably tell by looking at the poster, this most certainly is a movie that feels like it belongs in the late 90's.

"Happy birthday, Mr. President..."

And as much as that may sound like a slam, 90's action movies were awesome, so there's no issue there. By all means, remind me of something staring John Travolta or Christian Slater or Nicolas Cage. I will not complain. Hell, "Olympus Has Fallen" would actually make a decent double feature with something like "Under Siege" or maybe "Broken Arrow." Hell, even "Crimson Tide" would be a nice pairing.

Once the film gets going with the ridiculous plot, which gives "Red Dawn" a run for its money in terms of "That's dumb," bullets are flying and things are exploding with such rapidity that it almost overrides the fact that none of what we're seeing makes any sense or could feasibly happen. But really, in a movie like this when it's one man against an army of terrorists, there does come a certain point when logic does have to take a back seat to entertainment. After all, that's why we invented Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Just what part of "I'm going to shoot down this jet with a pistol" is problematic to you?

The action is acceptably frantic and reasonably well-shot, although it does suffer a bit from our old friend shakycam - The bane of the modern action film. And it may have just been the theater I saw it at (I'm looking at you, Emagine Canton) but the movie also seemed exceedingly dark, making it difficult to follow, particularly when about 3/4's of the movie takes place at dusk or night in a building with the power cut. So that was fun. But I can't deny that it was action packed, and I was never bored.

But for as much as the action counts, films like "Olympus Has Fallen" really depend on the charisma of their star, and while Gerard Butler isn't fantastic, he's not bad. He's just not that great. He certainly has the badass factor down pretty solidly, but for some reason the extra oomph to push him into full blown action movie star isn't there. Butler kind of falls in a weird place for me, being that he's like Jeremy Renner without the charm or Karl Urban without the acting chops. And though even a watered-down version of Renner or Urban is still good, after a while it does become a bit noticeable. And for me, I just start wishing that either one of those guys were in the movie instead.

I can't be the only one to be annoyed by his face, can I?

In a smart move, the film surrounds Butler with some heavyweights in the acting department, including not only Aaron Eckhart and Cole Hauser but also Morgen Freeman and even freaking Robert Forster. And while they barely (if ever) have any direct contact with Butler, he's talking to them for a good chunk of the film. Unfortunately we also have Angela Bassett sitting in the same room as Freeman and Forster sucking some of the talent out, but it still works as long as she's not talking. But one wonders what they're doing when they have not only a great actress like Ashley Judd in the film for just the first 15 minutes, but also Radha Mitchell, who has a do-nothing part we barely see her in. For shame.

I only have four complaints about "Olympus Has Fallen" that really irked me enough to really stand out. Everything else was an acceptable action movie pâté which was enough to satisfy my post-"Die Hard 5" malaise. Does that sound like a good time? Then I say go for it. You could do far worse. But me being me, I gotta vent. Here goes.

The first one is an admittedly minor complaint, made even less so by the fact that I got a pretty good laugh out of it. I found Melissa Leo's character, the Secretary of Defense, to be borderline unwatchable. I think they were trying to go for a tough Hillery Clinton type (unsurprisingly) but Leo plays it with such teeth-clenched, steel-jawed machismo that it's a bit much. But it gets ridiculous after she gets the patriotic snot beat out of her by the villain, and gets dragged away to what she assumes will be her death. As this is happening she starts belting out the Pledge of Allegiance through her broken mouth at the top of her lungs. While this is obviously meant to be stirring and resolute, I couldn't help myself and had to laugh, since due to her slurred and half-conscious speaking she sounded less like a patriot bravely meeting their end and more like Calamity Jane from "Deadwood" on another one of her bourbon fueled rampages.

"AH PLESH AHLEEJANCE TO DA FWAGADA YOONITID STaate...ah HELL! I pished mahself 'gain!"

The second issue I took was that for as much as this is supposed to be an "America! Yeah!" movie, it sure does love to make our army, air force, police force, NORAD, secret service, and overall level of preparedness look really, really bad. I know the whole point of the film is that Gerard Butler is forced to save the day, but there is a serious lack of any kind of general competence going on with everyone else. During the initial attack the only thing the men guarding the White House seem willing to do is discourage the enemy by dying at them.

You know, I'm no military strategist. I'm not a genius when it comes to tactics. The best battleplan I usually manage to come up with in D&D is "The fighter hits it with his sword." I won every battle in StarCraft by building 12 of the biggest air units available and pounding the other side into the dirt from above. But were I put in a situation where I had a large, massed group of enemies advancing towards me over open ground, and I was standing outside a heavily fortified building with numerous places to hide and to take cover, I can tell you without equivocation that my first instinct would NOT be: "Stand out in the open so the enemy can clearly see and shoot you."

"Quickly men! Stop the bullets with your bodies! Forth, Eorlingas!"

I know it's a convention of the action movie, wherein the bad guys need to appear as a viable threat, but for the love of Crom, the secret service looses roughly 80% of their strength before they even think that perhaps, just maybe it might be a good idea to duck behind a pillar or something or simply GO INSIDE. It doesn't make the terrorists look scary so much as it makes the Americans look really dumb.

Speaking of dumb, there's a pretty hackneyed twist in "Olympus Has Fallen" involving Dylan McDermott's secret service agent revealing himself as a traitor who was helping the North Koreans the whole time. And like usual in these films, his reasons for doing so are never explained more than a silly little "America is bad!" speech. It's just like Xander Berkley in, again, "Air Force One." And it was stupid then, too. I've never liked the plot device of a traitor in the midst of a ridiculously selective group of elite soldiers. I can never figure out how nobody figured him out, and why he's secret service anyway when he was capable of turning heel to the point of blowing up the United States. Which is the place where he lives. It's where he keeps all his stuff.

Oh geez, look out everyone. Bobby Donnell is locked and loaded.

And lastly the villain Kang, played by Rick Yune, just wasn't up to par when it comes to baddies in movies like this. This kind of movie needs a Gary Oldman. A Christopher Walken. A Dennis Hopper. I'm not saying that Rick Yune is bad, but he's not up to the task of being an intimidating villain, at least as the character is written. He's not memorable, he doesn't actually do much, and he's not any fun to watch.
  

 "Nice suit. John Philips, London. I have two myself."

He doesn't say anything clever. He's not intimidating physically aside from some random kung-fu he pulls out of nowhere, and he doesn't really do anything besides beating up an older women and a dude who is cuffed at the wrists. And his big fallback plan is to hide after sacrificing the rest of his men. Norman Stansfield he is not. He's just a weaselly scumbag who isn't any fun. That's honestly the biggest problem, as I am of the firm belief that the quality of an action movie is directly proportional to how entertaining the villain is.

Don't believe me? Think back on "Die Hard" and "Die Hard With A Vengeance." Alan Rickman and Jeremy Irons were great, right? Now quick. Without checking IMDB, who was the villain in "Die Hard 2: Die Harder?" What about "Live Free or Die Hard?" How about "A Good Day to Die Hard?" What? You don't remember? Hmm. I do wonder how those movies stack up against the other two.

I rest my case.

Check out the trailer. What you see is pretty much exactly what you get.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Olympus Has Fallen" is alright. Just alright. I've seen way worse action films, and for a hybrid of "Die Hard" meets "24" meets paranoid right-wing gun nut conspiracy theory 'MERICA! propaganda, it's serviceable. I'm just surprised it wasn't made 15 years ago. Well, it was. Several times, but you know what I mean. It's worth a rental at least, if you're feeling the urge for bloodshed.

The Delta Force (1986)

I love how Lee isn't even looking where he's shooting.

Chuck Norris may be ironically famous again thanks to the internet and its obsession with taking things that are considered lame and making them not lame by way of overblown forced epicness, but there was a time, back in the day as it were, when he was actually considered something more than just a punchline. And Steven Seagal actually had movies released in theaters. Eddie Murphy was respected as an artist. So was Micheal Jackson. And the graphics in "Super Mario 64" were cutting edge. And Nickelodeon was actually a really good channel. And Green Day was considered edgy and rebellious. Shocking, I know, but it's all true. I'll quit now before young minds are too collectively blown.

"The Delta Force" is one of Norris' best known films, and was released by Golan-Globus Productions, who were a home-video action movie gold mine in the 80's, producing such films as "Enter The Ninja" and "Death Wish 3" among many others, including two Stallone films, "Over The Top" and "Cobra." In other words "Cheese-filled 80's action-splotation." And if you like films like that, then "The Delta Force" is going to be right up your ally. If not, well, you're probably going to hate it.

Go ahead. Tell him you didn't like it.

The story is inspired by a real life plane hijacking that occurred in 1985. Lebanese terrorists take over a plane from Athens to Rome, forcing it to instead land in Beirut. They then make the standard demands of the US government on threat of the death of the passengers. And it's up to Delta Force, a highly trained Spec Ops unit, to save the hostages. There's a little more to it, including an Israeli Army sleeper agent in Beirut and the alternate imprisonment of the Jewish passengers on the plane, but that's the general idea we're working with here.

Personally, I wasn't a big fan of this one. I can't lie. From the concept I was expecting something along the lines of "Executive Decision," a movie that kicks ass, but instead it was more akin to a clunky, not very well paced bore-fest. True, it had it's moments, but overall it didn't have nearly enough action and relegated its star and title military unit to barely being in the movie at all for what seems like a good 70% of its far too long 2 hours and change run-time. But the biggest issue I took was that the narrative was very difficult to follow for me due to some rather bizarre choices in the editing booth.

The initial hostage taking scenario I was fine with. Robert Forster as Abdul, the main terrorist, is fine and plenty scary as the main villain, and kind of functions as an evil Raul Julia. His twitchy partner, Mustafa (David Menachem), I was less a fan of. And while they did do a passable job of being sweaty and creepy, they both had this really annoying habit that all bad guys have in movies, in that they don't understand that a gun is generally regarded as a ranged weapon. They always shove their gun in the faces of the people they're threatening, which is indeed an effective way of scaring someone, but at the same time is pretty dumb of the person holding the gun because if the person being threatened had the basest amount of self-defense training they could disarm him so quickly his mustache would spin like a joke bow-tie. It's no huge deal, it's just a pet peeve of mine.

"Don't MAKE me put myself in a position where you all could easily overpower me!"

But after the hostage taking is when I loose track of all narrative cohesion with this film. All the Jewish passengers are rounded up and unloaded in what is probably the best and most intense part of it, and had the whole movie been centered around that idea and fleshed it out a bit more while keeping the run-time at a reasonable hour and a half, "The Delta Force" would probably been a stronger film.

This is also the bit with the best acting, as some big talents like Joey Bishop and Shelley Winters really ratchet up the tension with the fear over being exposed as Jews to the terrorists. But surprisingly it's German actress Hanna Schygulla as the stewardess having to point out the Jews on board, and (shockingly) George Kennedy as a Catholic priest stepping up to stand with them who steal the show. That was some really good stuff, and Robert Forester plays it evil enough so that there's really no telling what will happen. That should have been the backbone of the whole film. You've even got action movie veteran Bo Svenson as the pilot. I hate to say it, but this movie doesn't really need Chuck Norris or Lee Marvin.

 "Say, Chuck. You ever feel unnecessary?"

"Only if I allow the situation to not need me."

"Baby, that joke won't be around for another 20-some years."

After that bit is where I started to lose the plot. The plane lands in what I thought was Beirut, and they take on more terrorists, who board the plane and take the Jewish passengers off, and free the women and children. It's at this point that Delta Force finally gets to do something after over an hour into the film, but surprise, they screw up and don't realize there are more than two terrorists on the plane now. Way to recon that one. So one of the hostages gets killed as a result. Good job, Delta Force.

I thought that the movie had to be getting close to over, since I thought the terrorists had landed where they initially wanted to go, but as I had to look up later online after being thoroughly confused, that scene was actually taking place in Algiers. They had made a stop along the way. Then it cuts to Delta Force training to take out an airliner full of terrorists (which they never end up doing by the way), and then *boom* the terrorists are shown bopping about somewhere in the Middle East. I'm assuming it's Beirut, but the movie never actually shows them landing there. All of a sudden the hostages are in jail cells somewhere and I'm wondering when in the hell this all happened.

"So Fred from Scooby Doo, Chuck Norris, and a rabbi are driving in a van..."

It really felt like I missed a 15 minute chunk of the movie somewhere. How did the terrorists land in Beirut? What was the result of that? Did they have to fight anyone? Did they just let them go on their merry way once the plane touched down? I have no idea because the movie doesn't seem to think I need to know that. The thing that really makes that confusing later is that before the hostages in Beirut (?) are rescued by Delta Force, they free the Jewish prisoners. But I had no idea where those prisoners are in relation to the other hostages, since I never knew where the terrorists went after unloading them. And more to that point, since I just saw Delta Force evidently having the time to set up elaborate training exercises, I didn't even know when the two rescues were taking place.

The best way to describe it is to imagine that you're watching the first half of "Air Force One." Then, halfway through, throw in the last half of "Clear and Present Danger." Yeah, it's still Harrison Ford and yeah there's still ethnic people being evil, but you would tend to wonder what in the hell happened to that whole "plane thing." And yeah, you'd probably wonder why the villain is Venezuelan instead of from Kazakhstan now, but hey, they're still ethnic right?

The last act of the film is when we actually get to see Delta Force kick butt in all its glory, but for me it's a bit too little too late. There was just too much jumbled mess leading up to it. And the acting from the passengers was so much better than the acting from anyone in Delta Force that I really wanted to see the hostages more than their rescuers. And the last act is an endless wave of action that gets more than a tad repetitive, since I know nothing about nor care anything about any of the soldiers in Delta Force at this point. All I know about them is that they all dress in black and have an easily spotted coil of white rope looped around them.

Seriously with the rope. What's up with that?

That's really all I've got for "The Delta Force." It's got a following, and it's notable not only for its 80's-tastic theme song but also for being Lee Marvin's last film before he died, but even those things really didn't do enough for me. The song is far too happy sounding for the tone of the film and is overused to the point of absurd annoyance, and it gets really grating to the nerves. Frankly I started to wonder if that was the only bit of music for the entire film because I swear it's either that freaking song or silence.

And as far as Lee Marvin goes, I love him but he's not really in it a whole lot, and when he is in it he doesn't do very much except bark orders over a portable phone he starts yelling into a full two seconds before he actually brings it up to his face. Although the coolest bit that Lee has in the film involves that phone as he gives the most badass reading of the phrase "Take 'em down!" in the history of cinema. Seriously, it's glorious. But that's about it.

You could actually say the same thing about Chuck Norris, really. He isn't in "The Delta Force" very much considering that he's the top-billed star and accused main character. True he does some of the expected kung-fu-ing, but it's nearly two hours into the film until we see it, and it's really not much to write home about since it's not much of a fight. To be honest, I think Harrison Ford in "Air Force One" ended up kicking far more ass than Chuck did in this film. And growling "Get off my plane" before breaking the villain's neck and tossing him out of the loading bay at cruising altitude is a far better one-liner than whispering "Sleep tight, sucker" after shooting a guy under a bed.

Then again, Harrison Ford didn't have a ROCKET BIKE. Chuck's got the advantage there.

THE BOTTOM LINE - If you cut out an hour of "The Delta Force," you'd actually have an okay action movie. Nothing to write home about, but it would be okay. It's just too damn long with not much happening until the last 40 minutes. If you only watched that last act though, it's alright. I'm not saying it's bad, I've just seen a lot better. Count me out of the fan club on this one.