After Olympus Has Fallen and London Has Fallen movies which were focused on saving the President of the US here comes the story about a secret agent himself.
In the first movie, it was all about the North Koreans holding the president hostage in the White House, in the second movie it was all about Muslim terrorists killing the world’s most powerful leaders.
This time, the action franchise targets Russians, where a formidable secret service agent Mike Banning has to protect himself from accusing of an assassination attempt on the President of the United States.
Mike must shoot and drive his way through action sequences to prove his innocence throwing a few grenades here and there.
In 2019 Banning reminds a tired John McClane who needs to stop and retire but can’t go against his passion of being a boy scout saving everyone around. And Angel Has Fallen serves well to showcase what the agent is capable of surviving each fight with brilliantly trained mercenaries.
But drones, equipped with smart bombs and computerized facial-recognition software don’t let everyone forget that we live in XXI century and Banning looks too old for this wireless world, the same way like it was with John McClaine.
Comparing the movie to the famous Fugitive film, Jada Pinkett Smith was hired to play an FBI agent, the equivalent of the Tommy Lee Jones, but authors decided to go a different route and focus more on action sequences.
It was a pleasure to see Nick Nolte as a damaged Vietnam veteran and Banning’s father who teaches his son about the futility of war before setting off a wall of home-rigged explosions. It adds a lot of fun and a good vibe to the movie as well as Morgan Freeman presence.
Danny Huston plays the main bad guy, a mercenary with the small army at his disposal. But it’s hard to believe that he can play a tough guy with special skills able to give Mike Banning any kind of troubles. In my opinion, this is a bad choice of a bad guy.
The film has too many shaky, unfocused close-ups which don’t bring anything good to action scenes. But it doesn’t stop it from being made in the best veins of dynamic or stylish Tony Scott flicks.
Ric Roman Waugh is an ex-stunt guy who used to work on the greatest action films such as True Romance, Hard Target, Tango And Cash, Lethal Weapon, etc.
He knows what he is doing when it comes to action and stunts. Greg Powell, Adam Horton, Asen Asenov and James Grogan are there to help as well.
If you are a fan of old-school action movies or first parts of Die Hard and Lethal Weapon, Angel Has Fallen will be a true joy to watch, but if you are after gadgets films such as MI or James Bond this is not your cup of tea.
