Angel Has Fallen (Film Review)

2019 Lionsgate
Directed by: Ric Roman Waugh; Written by: Robert Mark Kamen, Matt Cook, and Ric Roman Waugh
Starring: Gerard Butler, Morgan Freeman, Jada Pinkett Smith, Lance Reddick, Tim Blake Nelson, Piper Perabo, Nick Nolte, and Danny Huston
MPAA Rating: R; Running Time: 121 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 5/10

After sustaining brutal injuries over his long and violent Secret Service career, including several concussions, Mike Banning suffers from chronic pain and debilitating headaches. However, no one knows how deeply his injuries have affected him, not Banning's wife, not the Secret Service, and...not the President he guards every day. Banning is popping pills trying to bide his time, also mulling the prospect of leaving the field to become Director of the Secret Service, if the President will offer the position. Unfortunately, on a presidential fishing trip, the Secret Service and The President are attacked by explosive drones, and only Banning and the President survive. The President goes into a coma (despite prominence on the poster, Morgan Freeman spends most of the film in bed, unconscious), and Banning is framed for the attack. Someone has exploited Banning's secrecy over his health issues to also make it look like Banning took a $10 million payment to turn on his nation. Banning is arrested, but breaks free and goes on the run, dodging not only U.S. authorities, but the nefarious organization that has framed him, all while attempting to prove his innocence. Angel Has Fallen...but not for long!
After a movie that features a massive assault on the White House, and a second that features a massive assault on the entire city of London, Angel Has Fallen features a significantly smaller scale. Famous monuments aren't destroyed, hostages aren't taken, a terrorist doesn't broadcast demands on a massive television screen. It's just Gerard Butler, as Mike Banning, running for his life, trying to clear his name. The smaller scale works as a change of pace, while not completely robbing the film of several massive action scenes, including the afore-mentioned explosive drone attack, and another where Manning and his estranged prepper father blow up half a mountainside.
Speaking of father, the film's strongest aspect is the introduction of Nick Nolte as Clay Banning, a former Vietnam vet who left Mike and his mom many years before to spare them the effects of his PTSD. Nolte is one of the great actors, and he brings his absolute A game here as the grizzled, paranoid Clay, who tries to rebuild the broken relationship with his son by helping him immolate as many foes as possible. He's also, at select moments, hilarious, and has one of the best line deliveries in all of 2019 cinema. Butler, looking a lot more grizzled himself here than he did in 2013's Olympus Has Fallen, knows this character inside and out by this point, and knocks his role out of the park, as well. However, due to no fault of its actors, Angel Has Fallen doesn't live up to the previous films in the series.

London Has Fallen is only 99 minutes long, and nothing but action after the first 20 minutes. I appreciate Angel's attempt to change gears, but it's 22 minutes longer than London, with half the action, and nothing as good as the standout sequences in that film. The film drags, livens up when Nolte appears, then drags a bit again. The plot also isn't very interesting, as the villain framing Banning is obvious to the audience before Banning is even framed. It also lacks consistency, as well. For instance, Banning's failing health is at the forefront in the first half of the film...in the second half, it's barely mentioned, and Banning almost stops struggling with it until the ending essentially completely brushes it away.
I was reasonably entertained by this film, but not drawn into it like the first two, outside of the Nolte-centric midsection. I'm not saying this series can't successfully escape its original "Die Hard in..." framework, but Angel Has Fallen is not a great argument for that point.