FILM REVIEW: London Has Fallen (15)

In 2013, director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) scored a sizeable hit with his action thriller White House Down, which imagined a North Korean terrorist attack on the seat of power in Washington D.C, which was eventually thwarted by the combined efforts of a disgraced Secret Service agent and a resourceful President of the United States.
London Has Fallen. Pictured: Charlotte Riley and Colin Salmon.  PA Photo/Lionsgate.London Has Fallen. Pictured: Charlotte Riley and Colin Salmon.  PA Photo/Lionsgate.
London Has Fallen. Pictured: Charlotte Riley and Colin Salmon. PA Photo/Lionsgate.

The sequel supplants Fuqua with Swedish filmmaker Babak Najafi in the director’s chair, and moves the pyrotechnics across the Atlantic to the Palace of Westminster.

The British Prime Minister dies in suspicious circumstances and statesmen and women from around the world gather in the capital for the funeral.

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Among the attendees are President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart) and Secret Service Agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler).

Terrorist mastermind Aamir Barkawi (Alon Moni Aboutboul) employs his henchman Kamran (Waleed F Zuaiter) and a gun-toting militia to infiltrate the heavily guarded ceremony with the intention of assassinating world leaders and changing the course of history.

Banning joins forces with a plucky MI6 agent (Charlotte Riley) to avert disaster.

Meanwhile back in Washington, Vice President Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman) and his team struggle to get a grip on the situation.