There’s something reassuringly by-the-numbers, though delivered with plenty of noise and an appropriately high body count, about Angel Has Fallen.
It’s the latest in the series of action-adventure films starring Gerard Butler as the seemingly indestructible Secret Service agent Mike Banning who (by the look of it) has it in his job description to save the US president from hordes of heavily armed bad guys every couple of years.
In fact, the film is so familiar you can pretty much guess its plot and who the dastardly ringleaders are since its attempt to offer up a surprise evil head honcho is little more than half-hearted.
But at least Butler has just the right amount of rugged wolfish charm to carry the film on his broadish shoulders, and deliver what feels like computer-generated lines with some eye-twinkling gusto.
Banning is a typically tired and troubled man.
This is a man who drinks, clearly has hangovers, suffers from insomnia and is taking painkillers to deal with the damage his aging body has taken over the years… repeatedly facing those bad guys is clearly not good for you!
Sure, Banning is a two-fisted, wisecracking, gun-toting, knife-wielding all-action guy, but he is also less than perfect.
This time round, Banning finds himself framed for an assassination attempt on President Allan Trumbull ( Morgan Freeman ) after a drone attack puts Trumbull in a coma, the Secret Service detail killed and last-man-standing Banning held in custody.
Before you know it, he is on the run from his own agency, the FBI and black-clad baddies, and in an obligatory race-against-time, he has to turn to an unlikely ally to foil a very real terrorist attack.
Yes, it is time to bond with the father who abandoned him years before…
Luckily, Banning senior is a paranoid survivalist outdoorsman with a stash of guns and explosives, and is played with relish and suitable bluster by Nick Nolte, who sports a big bushy white beard.
It’s all rather prehistoric in terms of gender roles though – Piper Perabo has little to do as Banning’s wife Leah except hold their child, and Jada Pinkett Smith is just a straight-faced FBI agent who grudgingly comes to realise Banning may be telling the truth.
Frustratingly, in the end, Angel Has Fallen is just too old-fashioned to be anything more than simplistic action fare.
Angel Has Fallen is in UK cinemas on August 21, 2019.
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