| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Gerard Butler | ... | ||
| Aaron Eckhart | ... | ||
| Finley Jacobsen | ... | ||
| Dylan McDermott | ... | ||
| Rick Yune | ... | ||
| Morgan Freeman | ... | ||
| Angela Bassett | ... | ||
| Melissa Leo | ... | ||
| Radha Mitchell | ... | ||
| Cole Hauser | ... | ||
| Phil Austin | ... |
Vice President Charlie Rodriguez
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James Ingersoll | ... |
Admiral Nathan Hoenig
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Freddy Bosche | ... |
Diaz
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| Lance Broadway | ... |
O'Neil
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| Sean O'Bryan | ... | ||
When the White House (Secret Service Code: "Olympus") is captured by a terrorist mastermind and the President is kidnapped, disgraced former Presidential Secret Service Agent Mike Banning finds himself trapped within the building. As our national security team scrambles to respond, they are forced to rely on Banning's inside knowledge to help retake the White House, save the President and avert an even bigger disaster. Written by FilmDistrict
First off, let me say that the movie is a high production Hollywood film meaning the guns look real, there is ample budget for Apache helicopters and realistic sets, professionally choreographed fight scenes, and the requisite amount of explosions and CGI effects.
However, looking at this film in terms of realistic plot and character development, it lacks quite a bit. Without giving anything away, if you saw the trailer, this shouldn't be a spoiler, we're expected to believe an outrageous number of defensive failures on the part of several security organizations -- enough to bring on a not-so-clever or intriguing attack on the White House. Let's just go with that for a moment, using our advanced sense of Hollywood suspended disbelief syndrome and hope that, although the plot is implausible, at least the characters make it real.
Morgan Freeman gives one of his most cardboard, stale acting appearances ever. The stereotypical military head says to blow things up, the more reticent advisers say to act cautiously, the President decries the inhumanity of killing staff members while the body count from the aforementioned guns and ammo displays and explosions count easily into the many dozens (hundreds likely, difficult to count). Our one last hope is Gerard Butler. I must say I like him as an action hero, and he played his role well here. But he was vaguely a man of action at the beginning of the movie, albeit at a desk for a few brief moments about 10 minutes in to 14 minutes into the movie, and he was a more defined man of action by the end of the movie -- don't look for any more character development from any character in the movie at any time. That was it; no development whatsoever. It's like asking for architectural and civil planning lessons from the suburbs of Detroit. The phrase "devoid of" comes to mind.
Watch this only if you want some mindless action without having to think at all. And once again you can wave a patriotic American flag at the end and put another point forward for American exceptionalism.