FILM: London has Fallen
CAST: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart
DIRECTION: Babak Najafi


Seconds after a Secret Service agent plunges a knife — repeatedly — into a terrorist, making sure the victim’s phone contact can hear, the US president poses a question.
“Was that really necessary?” President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart) asks. “No,” responds Mike Banning (Gerard Butler).
The same might be said of London Has Fallen, a sequel to 2013’s Olympus Has Fallen. That thriller, which grossed $161mn at the worldwide box office, was directed by Antoine Fuqua and introduced the agent, the president and others caught in a takeover of the White House.
The core cast is back, although some actors are reduced to glorified or unglorified cameos, Fuqua is out, director Babak Najafi (Easy Money II: Hard to Kill) is in, and the main backdrop switched from Washington, DC, to London.
London Has Fallen opens in Pakistan, where the daughter of international arms dealer Aamir Barkawi (Alon Moni Aboutboul) is getting married. The United States bombs the reception, and the bride and others are killed or maimed. Barkawi survives and tries to put into practice what he preaches: “Vengeance must be profound and absolute.”
He masterminds the attack on London, the site of a hastily-arranged funeral attracting global leaders. The minute a TV reporter says, “It is the most protected event on Earth,” you know something really, really bad is about to happen — and it does.
Can Banning, an ex-Special Forces guy who is two weeks away from becoming a first-time father, keep the president safe? Or, more precisely, alive and away from terrorists who vow, “We’re going to kill him slowly and stream it live.”
London Has Fallen makes the secret service agent a veritable Superman able to wipe out armies of terrorists with gunfire, bombs, knives, speeding cars, brute force and military smarts. Even the president is an expert marksman. 
Don’t expect any pauses for thoughtful or even pithy debates about arms sales, terrorist attacks and retaliatory drone strikes. This storytelling is black and white, kill or be killed, us against them.
London Has Fallen depends on Butler delivering fearlessness, competence and manliness, and the 300 star does so in Spartan spades. It’s a muscular action picture for those who want their heroes never to hesitate, their villains to pay with lives or limbs, and their endings patriotic and more than a little pat. —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/TNS

Surprise attack


FILM: Jarhead-3: The Siege
CAST: Charlie Weber
DIRECTION: William Kaufman


Jarhead 3: The Siege is the latest film in what is now, officially, a franchise.
The setups to both 13 Hours (reviewed here last week) and Jarhead 3 are quite similar. Marines (In 13 Hours, it was the turn of “contractors”) protecting a US embassy are caught off guard when militants suddenly attack. Outnumbered and outgunned, the Marines have to muster enough courage and firepower to survive the assault.
Corporal Evan Albright (Charlie Weber) joined the elite Marine Corps Security Guards to save the world and see some action. But his first assignment, protecting a US embassy in a seemingly safe Middle Eastern capitol, relegates his unit to wrangling “gate groupies” protesting outside the compound and honing their marksmanship by playing video games. 
So Albright and his team are caught off guard when well-armed militants launch a surprise attack aimed at killing an informant in the embassy. They now need to have all the courage to fight back. 
The first Jarhead was a 2005 biographical drama military film based on Marine Anthony Swofford’s 2003 memoir of the same name, directed by Sam Mendes. The title comes from the slang term used to refer to United States Marines.
The original Jarhead was a highly watchable film. Jarhead 3 and Jarhead 2: Field of Fire struggle to keep up the same tempo and pace. — NB


A family’s frightful unravelling 


FILM: The Witch
CAST: Anya Taylor-Joy, Harvey Scrimshaw, Julian Richings
DIRECTION: Robert Eggers


New England, 1630. An English farmer leaves his colonial plantation, relocating his wife and five children to a remote plot of land on the edge of an ominous forest — within which lurks an unknown evil. 
Strange and unsettling things begin to happen almost immediately — animals turn malevolent, crops fail, and one child disappears as another becomes seemingly possessed by an evil spirit. 
With suspicion and paranoia mounting, family members accuse teenage daughter Thomasin of witchcraft, charges she adamantly denies. As circumstances grow more treacherous, each family member’s faith, loyalty and love become tested in shocking and unforgettable ways. 
The film seeks to tell the riveting story of one family’s frightful unravelling in the New England wilderness. — BV


DVDs courtesy: 
Saqr Entertainment Stores, Doha