by JASMINE ELSHAMY Photo & Video Editor
Art really imitates life in the new action-packed film “Olympus Has Fallen,” focused on a terrorist attack on the White House by the Koreans. Released on March 22, the situation the movie depicts sounds quite familiar.
The President’s now-disgraced former Secret Service bodyguard, Mike Banning (Gerard Butler *swoons*), comes to the rescue of the White House, whose Secret Service codename is Olympus. It is all up to Banning whether the White House can be saved or not while the bigwigs at Homeland Security and the White House try to make sense of the situation, and with a star-studded cast and excellent writers, the movie keeps you on the edge of your seat, watching from between your fingers.
The cast of this movie not only includes the gorgeous Butler, but also Aaron Eckhart as the President, Dylan McDermott, Angela Bassett, Melissa Leo, and Morgan Freeman. They all play authority figures in the White House, while McDermott plays a traitorous bodyguard of the President. Freeman steps in as the active president while the real president is held hostage.
The film is quite prevalent with what is going on in the real world, what with North Korea threatening America every other day with a different nuclear bomb. The writers of the movie, Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt, did a wonderful job capturing the essence of what it would really be like to have to be in the White House while it was under attack, and creating a captivating plot that kept you wanting more.
“The movie was absolutely fantastic. Despite all of the blood and the absurd amount of killing that went on onscreen, I loved it. Not only was it entertaining, but it was sort of like a PSA to remind all of us Americans that just because it’s been awhile since 9/11 that we shouldn’t still be wary of the possibility that something like that could happen again,” says sophomore Johan Bahalla.
The protagonist Banning is another magnetic aspect of the film. Banning bravely heads straight for the attackers when he learns of this dire state of affairs.
By doing this, he effectively positions himself as the only man who can offer those who are supposed to be taking control insider information regarding the activities of the terrorist group – thereby inadvertently assigning himself the monumental task of retaking the White House, rescuing the president, and saving the free world from all-out war.
No big deal, right?
“Mike Banning was the coolest, hottest character ever. He basically just walked through the halls of the White House killing everyone in his path,” says sophomore Justine Nesti. “I totally wish Gerard Butler was my bodyguard.”
The only letdown to the film was the fact that the director and writers did not make more use of the amount of award-winning talents like Freeman and Bassett. Their roles were sort of minor and did not live up to the great expectation everyone sets up in their head when you say, “Oh, Morgan Freeman is in that movie! Which basically means I expect deep voices and an amazing performance that will leave me sitting frozen in the theater hours after the movie has ended!”
Otherwise, the movie was very entertaining and proved its purpose as a movie should. This is a movie I would definitely recommend for all “Die Hard” and “Taken” fans.
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