ANGEL HAS FALLEN (2019) ***

Gerard Butler returns for his third go-round as the unstoppable, unflappable secret service agent Mike Banning.  In Olympus Has Fallen, the bad guys attacked The White House.  In London Has Fallen, they attacked… well… London.  This time out, the bad guys take the fight to Banning himself, framing him for the attempted assassination of the President (Morgan Freeman) and the death of his entire team.  It’s then up to Banning to clear his name and take down the elaborate conspiracy threatening to bring the nation to the brink of war.  

Angel Has Fallen is interesting as far as action sequels go.  Most opt for the bigger-is-better approach.  This one is content to take a more intimate look at its character and see what makes him tick.  Rarely to we get to see an action hero age appropriately or have realistic, humanizing problems, which is the real secret of the film’s success.  How many third entries in action franchises make social commentary… okay, so maybe that’s going too far… address such issues as opioid addiction, adequate concussion protocols, open carry policy, PTSD, and Russian collusion all within a two-hour span?  Seeing the filmmakers pay lip service to these issues helps to make Banning less of a Superman and more of a regular joe (compare his character development here to London Has Fallen where his big character scene was… putting together a crib) is novel enough to excuse some of its shortcomings.  

The biggest shortcoming has to be the lack of insane action sequences, which was London’s bread and butter.  This one has a silly drone strike sequence, and one or two inventive moments of Banning dispatching bad guys, but it pales in comparison to the previous entries in the series.  While I appreciate the attempts to ground Banning, grounding the action was a slight miscalculation on director Ric Roman Waugh’s part.  Since the man got his start directing the Shannon Whirry erotic thriller Exit, I’m able to cut him a little slack.

The upshot is that Nick Nolte comes along in the second half to give the movie a shot of adrenaline as Banning’s crazy old man who lives alone off the grid on a mountaintop to avoid the government.  You have never seen anyone act so grizzled in your life.  With his scraggly beard, crochety demeanor, and gravelly voice, he singlehandedly steals the picture.  New cast members such as Danny Huston, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Piper Perabo (replacing Radha Mitchell as Banning’s wife) get considerably less to do, but it hardly matters as Nolte and Butler’s verbal sparring gets so many laughs.