I\u2019ll admit, most terrorism\/spy\/war\/national defense movies of the past decade anger me for a dozen or so different reasons, not the least of which is because they frequently draw on Islamophobia, xenophobia, racism, fear-mongering, misogyny, etc. to advance their messages (that sounds rather like a certain political candidate we know, doesn\u2019t it?). But London Has Fallen <\/em>goes beyond the pale to be exceedingly irksome.<\/p>\n

The movie was released earlier this year and stars Gerard Butler as Mike Banning, a Secret Service agent, protecting President Benjamin Asher (played by Aaron Eckhart). It takes place during a massive terror campaign in London waged by Pakistani arms dealer and terrorist ringleader Aamir Barkawi (Alon Moni Aboutboul). \u00a0Back in the United States, Vice President Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman) runs the White House to try to extract Banning and Asher from the war zone that is now London.<\/p>\n

The movie begins with Barkawi\u2019s daughter\u2019s wedding, where an American spy informs the US intelligence community that Barkawi is present at the ceremony (alongside hundreds of innocent civilian wedding guests), leading the US to launch a drone strike against the wedding party to kill Barkawi and his family. Barkawi does not die in the strike, however, and over the next two years begins to plan his revenge and gather recruits. He begins his retributive terror campaign by assassinating the British Prime Minister to force the leaders of the Western world to arrive in London and then proceeds to bomb, shoot, and bludgeon all but President Asher to a most violent death. Asher escapes purely as a result of Banning\u2019s cunning and the foolhardy mistakes of his terrorist adversaries. By the end of the movie, naturally, the Americans live (while the British, French, Italian, Japanese, and numerous other delegations and respective security details all die) and Banning kills Barkawi, single-handedly, bringing down the entire terrorist network.<\/p>\n

How I abhor it? Let me count the ways.<\/h3>\n

First, and this isn\u2019t sociopolitical at all: Gerard Butler\u2019s character is insufferable. He is an unrepentant, pretentious, uber-aggressive, unlikeable jerk face twit of a bossypants, and I could not stand him. He insinuates himself into a leadership position in every situation, insulting and battering his way to the top, even when he has no claim to command. His disagreeableness had me grimacing through most of the movie, although that could also be attributed to almost everything else about it.<\/p>\n

Two: \u00a0the entire movie is American Exceptionalism at its finest. <\/strong>There is the obvious glorification of America and Americans as better than everyone else when this one secret service agent outsmarts the hundreds of terrorists who, by the way, succeeded in killing every <\/em>single other protection detail. Gerard Butler alone kills upwards of 40 terrorists by knifing or shooting them and then blows up another 50 plus terrorists, but none of the hundreds of brown terrorists even scratch <\/em>him. He leaves the entire debacle unscathed. American Exceptionalism also asserts itself in the sense that the scope of the movie narrows from the mass attacks that shake London and the world to merely protecting two Americans, which really goes to show the American disposition about world affairs.<\/p>\n

Three, Muslim terrorists AGAIN. <\/strong>I could almost get over this point because I know that\u2019s just how the national psyche works. and radical ISIS-like terrorists sells right now in Hollywood, but in London Has Fallen <\/em>that devolves into xenophobic blanket statements. Case in point: When Banning screams at Barkawi over the walkie-talkie of Barkawi\u2019s now-tortured and dead son: \u201cWhy don\u2019t you go back to Fuck-head-istan or wherever you\u2019re from?!\u201d Allow me to enlighten you, Mr. Banning, no such place as \u201cFuck-head-istan\u201d exists. I mean there\u2019s Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan… but no \u201cFuck-head.\u201d How curious. And even if \u201cFuck-head-istan\u201d did exist, all of the \u201cstan\u201ds are incredibly different from one another, so \u201cwherever you\u2019re from\u201d as a grouping for a wide variety of Central and South Asian countries sounds a bit haphazard and indiscriminate, wouldn\u2019t you say? I will also add that although you continue to refer to Pakistani and \u201cFuck-head-istani\u201d terrorists as Arab, Central\/South Asians are not Arabs.<\/p>\n

Also, the \u201cPakistanis\u201d in the movie aren\u2019t Pakistani, they just used random Brown people. <\/strong>The actor who plays Barkawi, the head antagonist, is Israeli; another is Belgian-Tunisian, French-Tunisian, Indian, etc. Not Pakistani. Actually, they don\u2019t even use Pakistani names or places in the film. That just serves to further the idea that all Brown\/Muslim\/Arab people are interchangeable and Hollywood. and\/or Americans have no need to draw lines of difference between anyone in that very diverse group. Which is reprehensible and obnoxious. Maybe it\u2019s just because they couldn\u2019t find \u201cFuck-head-istan\u201d on the map.<\/p>\n

The idea of making the Brown terrorists faceless semi-humans is furthered by the absolute lack of remorse for the civilians killed in the drone strike in Pakistan<\/strong>. A small modicum of regret shines through when President Asher realizes Barkawi is bent on avenging his family because of an American slaughter. But Banning dissuades Asher of the idea that Asher has any responsibility or should feel any guilt for what is happening, although they both continue to consider the devastation of London a travesty.<\/p>\n

Basically, the premise of the film is that Americans bombed innocent civilians in shopping malls and weddings for the sake of killing one target, and Barkawi turns around and does the exact same thing<\/em> in London. But the Westerners don\u2019t even attempt <\/em>to understand that senseless retributive violence, preferring to continuously and constantly dismiss it as \u201cinsanity.\u201d When Americans do it, it\u2019s justice and national security; when terrorists do it, it\u2019s murder and insane.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Number seven: I can almost understand– almost– the unrepentant, unhesitating murder of every terrorist Banning sees, but there is no <\/em>regard for the innocent civilian casualties <\/strong>in London either. Which is particularly telling considering that\u2019s what got you in this mess to begin with.<\/p>\n

Eight: lack of regard for human life isn\u2019t just an accidental side effect, but a welcomed and encouraged trait fostered in \u201cthe good guys.\u201d<\/strong> When one of the main terrorist organizers in London hesitates a moment to behead President Asher live on television, the film paints it as a sign of weakness. When Banning tortures a terrorist he has already shot for the sake of torturing a man and makes his brother listen to the torture, it is a quality of his good character, strength, and adept skills as a Secret Service Agent.<\/p>\n

Nine: At the end of the movie, the answer to the problem created by a drone strike is \u201csolved\u201d by a drone strike,<\/strong> when America finally succeeds in bombing Barkawi. Vice President Trumbull announces that \u201cThere are those who say that none of this would have happened if we just minded our own business. [They are wrong.] We owe it to our children and grandchildren to engage with the world.\u201d I\u2019m not sure that bombing, slaughtering, and destroying is quite what most people have in mind when they say \u201cengage,\u201d but I\u2019m not a politician, so what do I know?<\/p>\n

Finally, this movie is an explosion of testosterone-fueled aggression and most certainly does not pass the Bechdel Test<\/strong>. Although there are two named women in the movie, they never talk to one another because one dies in the first half hour of the film. and the other doesn\u2019t appear until the last half hour of the film.<\/p>\n

And so we have a gory, bloody, xenophobic, American-Exceptionalism-fueled, testosterone-laden, misogynistic, bomb-toting, unrepentantly civilian-slaughtering showdown of a film that was awful from beginning to end. Thumbs down.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ll admit, most terrorism\/spy\/war\/national defense movies of the past decade anger me for a dozen or so different reasons, not the least of which<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":644,"featured_media":34489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[784],"tags":[2062,351],"yoast_head":"\n