London Has Fallen

A Pakistani arms dealer whose family was killed by an American missile attack on his residential compound seeks revenge when world leaders descend on London for the funeral of the British Prime Minister.

As far as that goes, in these times, such a plot is quite plausible. Where 'London Has Fallen' extends itself into a universe of total implausibility, however, is the manner and extent to which that revenge is wreaked. It is not just the scale of the vengeance, nor the antics of its hero, Gerard Butler, which are laughable at times but even incidental moments are risible. Two examples. First, the British have perfected the ceremonial street procession into an art form and would never have a Prime Minister trapped in a traffic jam as depicted here. Second, the natural reserve of the British Public Servant would never allow the officers of London's Metropolitan Police to whoop and holler American style as presented in another scene.

As terrible as many of them are, I quite enjoy watching disaster movies where internationally known landmarks are destroyed. In this movie the CGI effects are reasonable if not always fully convincing and there was some fun in seeing those moments.

However the brain has to be switched off in order to sit through much of this film. One moment of personal amusement was my realisation that the actor portraying the Canadian PM also plays the American Ambassador in the Norwegian political disaster television series 'Occupied' which I have been watching on Netflix this week. Clearly if his acting career stalls he has a future as a Diplomat in disaster situations!

A lot of nonsense mostly and also quite brutal at times.

★★