London Has Fallen – 3.5 stars

With the weather becoming depressingly cold, on Friday night, my wife and I decided to stay in, order Chinese, and watch something mindless. We could not have asked for a better choice than this picture. The backstory takes about six minutes. We, the United States, bomb the wrong Middle Eastern family, who, for matters of what I presumed to be political correctness, are not radical jihadists, but rather, generic arms dealers who sow misery and discord wherever and whenever they can. Our chickens come home to roost several years later, when the family unleashes their long planned assault – a decapitation of world leadership at the state funeral for a British prime minister in London. Our own president (Aaron Eckhart) and his Secret Service superman (Gerard Butler) are trapped in the besieged capital, and it is up to Butler to extract the president in the face of what appears to be hundreds of bad guys.

Whatever concerns I had about excessive political correctness were quickly dashed by the character of Butler. In one instance, just before killing a bad guy, he screams at him “go back to Fuckheadistan.” In another instance, he tortures the brother of the primary bad guy, while the primary bad guy listens in via cell phone. After shoving his knife in the brother’s  stomach several times with a cruel twist, the president says to him “was that really necessary?” Butler responds “no.”

When Butler delivers the final coup, he prefaces it with a speech that is jingoistic, excessive, and hilariously satisfying.

“You know what you assholes don’t get? We’re not a fucking building! We’re not a fucking flag! We’re not just one man! Assholes like you have been trying to kill us for a long fucking time. But you know what? A thousand years from now, we’ll still fucking be here!”

Hoorah!!!

Yes, it is stupid, but it is also an exciting, well executed escape flick, with a lot of ingenious stunts, a cool re-creation of the destruction of London, and little attempt at what would otherwise be a cardboard and time-wasting story.