K-SCORE: 18
Director: Antoine Fuqua
“there are secret codes that, when entered into a computer, will detonate all of The US’s nuclear warheads in their silos”
Writer: Creighton Rothenberger, Katrin Benedikt
Starring: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman,
Spoiler Level: Moderate
In the extremely likely scenario where well armed, semi-competently trained, poorly planned North Korean terrorists take over The White House and kidnap President Eckhart, it’s nice to know retired secret service agent Butler, the only one capable of offering up any resistance, has a good enough heart to do the job, despite the fact that he was ostracised unfairly by the organization he once worked for.
Personally I thought Olympus Has Fallen does a great job capturing truly how incompetent the government can be. Sure none of the tactics employed by the terrorists or US government are carefully thought out or constitute effective disaster protocol, but there are interesting tidbits about the security assigned to protecting the leader of the free world and his enterprises. Like, did you know secret service agents are extremely willing to stand in front of machine gun fire? Also, had you heard that in the event of an attack on the exterior of The White House, no other government agency, army reserves, or police will be called in to assist? How about, did you know there are secret codes that, when entered into a computer, will detonate all of The US’s nuclear warheads in their silos and that said codes are held entirely by packed-together, easily-tortured members of the President’s inner circle?
Thankfully Gerard master of stealth Butler is able to quietly infiltrate 1600 Pennsylvania Ave and take out these North Korean masterminds one at a time, bringing them down in obscure back-hallways and discrete locales the terrorists would never think to defend such as The Lincoln Bedroom and The Oval Office. This is needed because Speaker of the House Freeman is shockingly willing to negotiate with terrorists and he’s not an adept negotiator.
Olympus has Fallen
White House Down
P.S. - We've got another Dante's Volcano Situation here. I really have to watch White House Down because of these two essentially identical films, only one of them features Tatum.