London Has Fallen arrived in American theaters on March 4, 2016, carrying the tagline “The world’s leaders have assembled. So have their enemies.” It is the second film in the Has Fallen series, following Olympus Has Fallen (2013), and it stars Gerard Butler as Secret Service agent Mike Banning, Aaron Eckhart as President Benjamin Asher, and Morgan Freeman as Vice President Allan Trumbull. Babak Najafi directed it. Four writers — Creighton Rothenberger, Katrin Benedikt, Chad St. John, and Christian Gudegast — are credited with the script. It runs 99 minutes. It grossed $205.9 million worldwide. It is not a good film.
Trailer, via LionsgateFilmsUK.
A Wedding, a Drone, and a Father
The plot opens with a decision, not a character. Intelligence services locate Aamir Barkawi, a Pakistani arms trafficker and terrorist mastermind, at his compound. They authorize a drone strike during his daughter’s wedding. The strike kills Barkawi’s family and, the film implies, Barkawi himself.
Two years later, British Prime Minister James Wilson dies suddenly. The G7 leaders prepare to attend his funeral in London. Secret Service Director Lynne Jacobs, played by Angela Bassett, assigns Banning to lead Asher’s overseas security detail. Banning’s wife Leah, played by Radha Mitchell, is shortly to give birth.
Air Force One lands at Stansted Airport. Banning arranges an earlier arrival at Somerset House via Marine One. That single scheduling choice is the film’s only real idea, and it is spent within minutes of the attack.
St Paul’s Cathedral and the Men in Uniform
As Asher’s presidential car arrives at St Paul’s Cathedral, an army of mercenaries led by Barkawi’s son Kamran launches coordinated attacks across the city. They are disguised as Metropolitan Police, the Queen’s Guardsmen, and other first responders. They kill the leaders of Canada, Germany, Japan, Italy, and France. They damage major landmarks and generate mass panic.
Asher’s early arrival throws off the St Paul’s attack. Banning returns Asher and Jacobs to Marine One. Terrorists with Stinger missiles force a crash landing in Hyde Park. Jacobs is killed. Banning escorts Asher into the London Underground as the city’s power is lost and residents shelter indoors.
The sequence is loud, fast, and almost entirely without consequence. Five world leaders die in a montage. The film treats their deaths as a scheduling problem for the next set piece.
Barkawi Is Alive in Sanaa
In Washington, D.C., Vice President Allan Trumbull investigates the incident with British authorities while trying to track down Asher. He receives a call from Barkawi — still alive, and in Sanaa. Barkawi poisoned Wilson to lure the G7 leaders to London. He wants revenge for the drone strike that killed his daughter. He promises to livestream Asher’s execution when Kamran captures him. Trumbull orders his staff to locate Barkawi’s businesses.
That is the whole architecture of the film. A father lost a daughter. A president is the bait. A vice president works the phones from a situation room. None of it is dramatized with any interest in the people involved.
The Cast the Film Wastes
The supporting cast is the most frustrating thing about London Has Fallen. Morgan Freeman, Melissa Leo as Defense Secretary Ruth McMillan, Robert Forster as General Edward Clegg, and Jackie Earle Haley as Deputy Chief Mason all appear. They sit in rooms and say lines. Charlotte Riley plays MI6 agent Jacquelin “Jax” Marshall. Colin Salmon plays Sir Kevin Hazard, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Sean O’Bryan plays NSA Deputy Director Ray Monroe. Waleed Zuaiter plays Kamran Barkawi. Alon Moni Aboutboul plays Aamir Barkawi.
The world’s leaders have assembled. So have their enemies.
That tagline is the film’s entire thesis, and it is also its ceiling. A better movie would ask what it means to gather seven heads of state in one cathedral. This one asks only how many explosions fit between the opening credits and the third act.
A Production That Changed Hands
The film’s production history explains some of what is wrong with it. In October 2013, it was announced that Butler, Eckhart, Freeman, Bassett, Leo, Forster, and Mitchell would reprise their roles from Olympus Has Fallen. Production was scheduled to begin in May 2015 in London. Antoine Fuqua, who directed the first film, did not return, due to his commitments with The Equalizer.
On May 1, 2014, Focus Features acquired distribution rights to the sequel and set a release date of October 2, 2015. On August 18, 2014, Fredrik Bond, who directed Charlie Countryman, was announced as director. Bond left the film on September 18, six weeks before shooting was to begin. On September 28, Babak Najafi signed on to direct.
Filming began in London on October 24, 2014. On November 4, 2014, a press release confirmed that filming had started and that Sean O’Bryan was reprising his role, with Alon Aboutboul, Charlotte Riley, and Waleed Zuaiter joining the cast. On November 12, Mehdi Dehbi joined to play Sultan Mansoor, described as the youngest of three brothers whose life was forever changed after a drone strike.
The film was released in the United States by Focus Features under their recently revived Gramercy Pictures label on March 4, 2016 — pushed from its original October 2015 date.
The Schedule the Film Kept
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| October 2013 | Butler, Eckhart, Freeman, Bassett, Leo, Forster, Mitchell announced to return |
| May 1, 2014 | Focus Features acquires distribution rights; October 2, 2015 release set |
| August 18, 2014 | Fredrik Bond announced as director |
| September 18, 2014 | Bond leaves the film |
| September 28, 2014 | Babak Najafi signs on to direct |
| October 10, 2014 | Jackie Earle Haley joins as Deputy Chief Mason |
| October 24, 2014 | Filming begins in London |
| November 4, 2014 | Filming start confirmed; O’Bryan, Aboutboul, Riley, Zuaiter in cast |
| November 12, 2014 | Mehdi Dehbi joins as Sultan Mansoor |
| March 4, 2016 | U.S. release |
A film that loses one director six weeks before shooting and hires another in ten days is a film assembled under pressure. That pressure shows. The action is competently staged and completely anonymous. The villains are given a motive and no interior life. The heroes are given a countdown and no interior life.
What the Film Gets Wrong
London Has Fallen wants to be about revenge. Barkawi’s daughter dies at her wedding. Barkawi poisons a prime minister to draw the men who ordered the strike into a city he controls. That is a clean, ugly, coherent engine for a thriller. The film never uses it.
Instead, it uses London as a backdrop for gunfire. St Paul’s Cathedral, Hyde Park, the London Underground, Somerset House, Stansted Airport — these are locations, not places. Nobody in the film has a relationship to any of them. The mercenaries are disguised as Metropolitan Police and the Queen’s Guardsmen, which is a genuinely unsettling image, and the film does nothing with the betrayal it implies.
The body count is enormous and weightless. The leaders of Canada, Germany, Japan, Italy, and France die, and the film moves on. A lesser film would at least pretend to grieve.
Gerard Butler is the one element that works, and only because he has decided to play Banning as a man who enjoys this. He is not a reluctant hero. He is a professional who is good at his job and knows it. That is a real choice, and it gives the film its only pulse.
A Sequel That Earned Nothing
London Has Fallen is a 99-minute action thriller that grossed $205.9 million worldwide and received negative reviews. Both of those facts are correct, and neither is surprising. The film is a sequel to Olympus Has Fallen, and it is a lesser version of it in every way: less tense, less coherent, less interested in its own premise.
The third film, Angel Has Fallen, was released on August 23, 2019. That the series continued is not evidence that this installment earned it. It is evidence that the first film’s premise was strong enough to survive one bad sequel.
What is worth watching here is the production schedule. Two directors, a pushed release date, a cast assembled piece by piece over a year — the film that resulted is exactly what that process produces. It is not a disaster. It is worse than that. It is a film with no reason to exist beyond the fact that the last one made money.
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