While I have enjoyed Secret Service Agent Mike Banning’s previous two action-adventures (Olympus Has Fallen, London Has Fallen), I think it is safe to say that they have finally run their course. The geo-political stakes are still very high — as is the destruction level and body count — but the tale is no longer compelling or believable (if it ever was).

Ric Roman Waugh’s film stages an assassination attempt on the President (Morgan Freeman) and frames Banning (Gerard Butler) for it. He gets away and tries to clear his name while being hunted by the F. B. I. and the real assassins, whose leader he knows intimately. The lone attempt to add humor to the proceedings is to cast Nick Nolte as his hermit father, hiding out in the West Virginia wilderness, the only person to whom Banning can turn for help.

Fans of large scale firefights, ambushes, explosions and mall shootouts will enjoy the fireworks, which are delivered with panache. Even some of the secondary characters are interestingly conceived and played. But it is painfully evident who is behind the mayhem and why it is being attempted. More bothersome is that no one, and I mean no one, in the Secret Service steps up to defend Banning when he is framed, or even to suggest that perhaps things are not what they seem. This movie does not put the F. B. I. or the Secret Service in a particularly favorable light; they are manipulated and fooled and bettered at will.

I still have a fondness for this brand of movie, but this one taxes my patience. It has its moments, and the action is eye-popping, yet it is also predictable and a damn sight too hawkish for my sensibilities. I didn’t enjoy it and I don’t see the need for any more Banning adventures, especially now that he has a new job. ☆ ☆. 7 September 2019.