Olympus Has Fallen

Olympus Has Fallen is Die Hard in the White House, and Gerard Butler’s Mike Banning is a convincingly brutal one-man army. When North Korean terrorists seize the White House and take the President hostage, a disgraced Secret Service agent trapped inside must fight his way through an occupied building to save him. Antoine Fuqua’s direction is gritty and surprisingly violent for a PG-13 concept — the R rating allows for stabbing, execution-style kills, and genuine menace. Butler’s physicality and Morgan Freeman’s gravitas as the acting president anchor a film that takes its ridiculous premise completely seriously, which is exactly why it works.