Die Hard In The White House 2013 Review Miniseries - Olympus Has Fallen (March 2013)

Written In January 2014

Plot Summary Taken Wikipedia:

Mike Banning (Butler), a former US ArmyRanger and Special Forces service member, is the lead Secret Service agent assigned to head the Presidential Detail. He maintains a personal, friendly relationship with President Benjamin Asher (Eckhart), First Lady Margaret (Judd) and, especially, their son Connor (Jacobsen). During a Christmas evening drive from Camp David to a campaign fundraiser, a tree branch falls and strikes the front of the president’s convoy, making the vehicles skid out of control on black ice on a bridge. The lead vehicle crashes through the guard rail and falls into the icy river below, leaving the presidential limousine teetering on the edge of the bridge. Banning is able to save President Asher, but Margaret and two other agents die when their vehicle falls and crashes.

Eighteen months later, Banning works at the Treasury Department, within sight of the White House. He has been removed from the Presidential Detail because the sight of him triggers Asher’s memories of the night Margaret died. During a political meeting between Asher and South Korean Prime Minister Lee Tae-Woo (Keong Sim), North Korean-led guerilla forces, under the guise as local garbage services and a crowd of tourists, mount an air and ground assault. Aided inside the White House by treasonous members of Prime Minister Lee’s detail, including Dave Forbes (McDermott), an ex-US Secret Service agent turned private contractor, and aerial cover fire from a US military gunship, the attack results in the eventual capture of the White House. Asher and several top officials are held hostage in the White House bunker, where Prime Minister Lee is killed. Before he is killed, Agent Roma (Hauser) alerts the Director of the Secret Service Lynne Jacobs (Bassett) that “Olympus has fallen”.

The attack has been masterminded by Kang Yeonsak (Yune), a Korean terrorist who appears to be motivated by hope for a reunification of Korea. Kang seeks to use Asher’s hostage status as leverage to force U.S. officials to withdraw the Seventh Fleet and US troops from the Korean Peninsula, removing American opposition from a North Korean invasion on South Korea. He also seeks to destroy all of America’s nuclear weapons in their respective silos across the country, turning the U.S. into an irradiated wasteland as revenge for the deaths of his parents (his mother having been killed by an American landmine, and his father having been executed). To accomplish this, he requires the access codes to Cerberus: a fail-safe device that self-detonates any U.S. nuclear missiles during an abort, which are held by the President, the Secretary of Defense, and theChairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all of whom are present in the bunker. Asher orders the other two officials to reveal their codes to save their lives, certain that he will not give up his code.

During the assault by Kang’s forces on the front lawn, Banning joins the White House’s defenders. He falls back into the building, disables the internal surveillance and gains access to Asher’s satellite phone, which he uses to maintain contact with Jacobs and Allan Trumbull (Freeman), theSpeaker of the House who is now the Acting President. Authorized to proceed, Banning’s first act is to save Connor, who Kang plans to use to force Asher to reveal his Cerberus code. Despite resistance, Banning finds Connor hiding in the hidden tunnels behind the Lincoln bedroom walls, thanks to the training Banning had given him before, and sneaks him out of the White House before beginning reconnaissance and reducing the terrorists’ numbers one by one. This includes Forbes, but not before Banning convinces Forbes to report to Kang that he killed Banning. Meanwhile, Army Chief of StaffGeneral Edward Clegg (Forster) convinces Trumbull to order an aerial SEAL assault on the White House in an attempt to enter through the roof and shut down Cerberus, but Kang’s team deploys an advanced anti-aircraft remote gun system called the Hydra 6, a fully automated weapons system capable of seeking targets independently. Discovering this, Banning advises Trumbull and Clegg to abort the mission, but it proceeds and the Hydra 6 annihilates all but one of the six helicopters before Banning can stop it. Kang retaliates for the attempted infiltration by killing Vice President Charlie Rodriguez (Phil Austin) on an open line to the Pentagon crisis room.

After Banning disables Kang’s communications, Kang tries to execute Secretary of Defense Ruth McMillan (Leo) outside the White House in front of the media, but Banning’s intervention allows her to escape and he takes out several more of Kang’s men in the process. With Kang’s forces dwindling, he fakes his own death as well as Asher’s by sacrificing several of his men and the remaining hostages in a helicopter crash. However, Banning believes that Kang has faked his death and will attempt to sneak away. Kang eventually cracks Asher’s code and activates Cerberus. As Kang attempts to escape with Asher, Banning kills the remaining terrorists, but President Asher is shot by Kang in the abdomen when Asher tries to fight Kang. Banning kills Kang by stabbing him in the head with a knife after overpowering him in hand-to-hand combat. Banning then disables Cerberus with the assistance of Trumbull with only seconds to spare. During daybreak that day, Banning walks out with Asher and is received by the soldiers posted to await their arrival. Sometime after the events, Washington begins to heal from the terrorist attack, while Banning once again becomes head of the Presidential Detail. Then Banning, Jacobs, Clegg, and Connor observe President Asher as he addresses the public.

Before I get into the actual review, let me talk about something I’ve noticed about this movie. Having gone through the tag for this movie on Tumblr, I’ve noticed a lot of people consider this film racist for depicting the North Koreans as villains. The majority of these accusations though, seems to come from a number of morons letting their anti-yellow flags fly on Twitter after seeing the movie. So let me put it this way;

North Korea is a country that isn’t exactly fond of the United States of America, they also don’t receive any of our films, they are also a pretty small country that is mostly reliant on foreign aid to hop along. They are also a communist dictatorship which, to the ears of the average American movie goer, equals bad news. So they make for someone that the audience will immediately be threatened by. BUT, the film does make it clear, this isn’t actually North Korea. It’s not South Korea either, or just plain Korea. The villains of the film are a third party terrorist group looking to reunite the Korean Peninsula under one rule. They are doing what they are doing in the hope that if this works, there will be no North or South Korea, there will just be Korea. This isn’t the Red Dawn remake from late 2012, these are an independent group of psychos who think themselves freedom fighters. This is not the North Korean military invading the US, these are terrorists who are working toward North Korea’s interests, but are not working under Kim Jong Un.

Now speaking of the villains, let’s get the to Pros and Cons, because that is certainly one of them!

PROS:

• Rick Yune’s Kang Yeonsak is a delight presence as a villain. He’s intimidating, yet honorable. You get the impression that he’s a true Korean patriot who simply wants to do what he thinks is right, and get back at the people (America) who feels wronged his own people.
• Gerard Butler, WELCOME BACK BIG MAN! After being lost for so many years in the land of bad romantic comedies like Playing For Keeps, The Ugly Truth, and Bounty Hunter, Butler has reclaimed for his former glory from his appearance as the Spartan King Leonidas in Zack Snyder’s opus 300! Gerard Butler is once again… a bad ass mother fucker! 

• Aaron Eckheart’s president is fantastic! This guy lost his wife and has had the chair for about six years and he feels like it! He also doesn’t put up with any crap from his captors. When he realizes that these guys are gonna try to use his kid against him as leverage, he gets right foul PISSED! When he meets with a former member of his secret service who’s working with the terrorists he calls him a traitor and tries to rough him up. When Mike is going head to head with Kang at the end, he tries to get in on it. He gets shot for his troubles, but he takes it like a man!
• Morgan Freeman.
• Angela Basset.
• Gerard Butler’s Mike Banning is a former US Army Ranger and he acts like it! This guy is leaving dead bodies behind him left and right like a one man army! That’s the way to do it bub!
• This is an R Rated action film. We get blood and we get tough language. In other words, we get how this situation would really look and sound like it. We don’t get people just dropping dead when they get shot, we get people all covered in blood. We don’t just get a handful of shits and one fuck. We get repeated uses of the infamous f-bomb and even more uses of the word shit.
• Tired of me talking about Gerard Butler? Well too bad, cause I got more point of praise for him. He just gives a really nice performance in this movie, you see the guilt on his face about what happened with the first lady. It was his job to protect the President and his family and he fucked it up. You see that on his face, he’s been sort of living in Limbo ever since that and getting demoted to the treasury happened. And when Kang calls him on this, he doesn’t deny it, he realizes that saving the President today won’t change that he lost the first lady 18 months ago. But he shrugs it off and says, it’ll be a nice place to start making up for it though.
• The secretary of defense lady in this movie is hardcore! When she’s asked for her Cerberus code, she refuses until the president orders her to give it. She refuses even in the face of certain death. She gets knocked down and then kicked in the gut repeatedly and yet she still says no. She even says a little later when talking to the president, that the one thing she doesn’t want on her tombstone is that she went down without a fight. A by God does she put one up! God bless you, you badass hardcore woman you! God bless!
• Like with White House Down, there is a small subplot with a little kid, but honestly, this one feels more natural and doesn’t take up as much time. The little kid is the president’s son, feels like a real kid, and is actually an added stake. And crap! I said I wouldn’t compare the two movies yet!

CONS:

• The CG wasn’t dodgy, but you can tell it wasn’t actually real.
• Morgan Freeman is without enough to do in this movie sadly.

You’ve got Harvey Dent as the President and Leonidas rescuing Olympus, what more do you need? Olympus Has Fallen gets an 8 out of 10!