The Melissa Leo Mini-Movie Marathon: Flight and Olympus Has Fallen

         Last weekend, Casey and I watched two movies that had very little in common, Olympus Has Fallen and Flight. One is a by-the-numbers action movie and the other highlights the struggles of an alcoholic pilot and his bumpy road to redemption. They share one thing, however, Melissa Leo playing supporting parts. Leo, the consummate “that woman in that thing” actress, has appeared on television in Homicide: Life on the Street and Treme. She also recently had parts in The Fighter, Oblivion, and Prisoners. Leo’s characters in each film effectively mirror the films themselves. In Flight, she portrays an NTSB investigator with the professionalism and command necessary to bring Denzel Washington’s Whip Whitaker to redemption. In Olympus Has Fallen, Leo plays a caricature of a female Secretary of Defense. In her most memorable (and unintentionally funny) scene, Leo defiantly recites out the Pledge of Allegiance as North Korean terrorists drag her beaten body from a White House bunker. One film professionally and somewhat successfully charts the struggles of addiction and denial, while the other fails to rise above the caricature of an action movie.

Flight

            In the opening scenes of Flight, Denzel Washington portrays Whip Whitaker, a lonely, drunken, and horny pilot, with a brash and easy confidence. He wakes up in bed with a flight attendant, answers a call from his ex-wife, takes a swig of beer, and does some coke, all before his 9:00 AM flight. These early scenes make it clear that Whitaker has a bad relationship with his ex-wife and son and a functional one with alcohol. As his life begins to unravel following his miraculous actions during a plane crash, Whitaker violently cycles between clinging to the bottle and forsaking it. Meanwhile Whitaker’s friends struggle to save his career and deflect any potential liability for operating a plane while drunk and high. Throughout the film, Washington ably fuses Whitaker’s superb flying skills, alcoholism, and his desperate attempt to stave off responsibility for his actions into a damaged but redeemable character. His confrontation will ex-wife and son represent Washington at his best. It is the part for a movie star and Washington plays it well.

            Director Robert Zemeckis surrounds Washington with a host of professional actors who ably support Washington’s performance. John Goodman embodies Whitaker’s stoner neighbor who shows up with booze and drugs at two opportune moments in the film. Don Cheadle plays Washington’s amoral criminal attorney who with the help of Bruce Greenwood’s pilots’ union rep enables and protects Whitaker from any consequences of his drinking and drug use. Leo offers a competent professionalism as her NTSB investigator draws the redemptive moment out of Whitaker.

            The film, however, overplays its themes of redemption. Zemeckis and screenwriter John Garnis don’t effectively demonstrate why the audience should root for Whitaker’s salvation. When Whitaker asks a flight attendant not to mention his drunken behavior, it is unclear why she would protect him. Loyalty, his miraculous piloting, a desire to protect the airline and shift the blame to the manufacturer are all offered as possible reasons, but the film doesn’t offer guidance or clarity. The audience is left wondering whether Whitaker was always just a manipulative alcoholic and drug addict. Whitaker’s confession and reconciliation with his son feel forced, like the plot and comforting the audience necessitated the addict confess his sins. The film’s music choices bludgeon the viewer—when Goodman arrives at the hospital, The Rolling Stones’ Sympathy for the Devil plays. Washington carries the film with a movie star performance, but the rest of the film doesn’t quite match up.

            Olympus Has Fallen

            This year featured a string of films depicting the wholesale destruction of major cities or large swaths of Earth. Man of Steel, White House Down, World War Z, all typify the recent film obsession with biblical levels of destruction. Olympus Has Fallen falls right into this pattern. Its comically predictable plotting, low-rent special effects, and dreadful characterization mark it as somewhere far south of entertaining summer blockbuster and just north of downright atrocity.

            Gerald Butler’s Secret Service agent, Mike Banning, drives the banal plot. All the cheap CGI merely undergirds Banning’s attempts to win back his best friend.  His girlfriend or wife or whoever complains that he’s too distracted and doesn’t pay enough attention to her. He’s distracted because he’s been kicked off the President’s protection detail. Banning, in the midst of car accident solely created to drive plot, manages to save President Aaron Eckhart, but not Mrs. President Ashley Judd. Too traumatized by the loss of his wife, Eckhart banishes Banning, despite their close relationship as boxing buddies and Banning’s friendship with Eckhart’s son. When North Korean terrorists boldly seize control of the White House in a series of unrealistic and absurd plot contrivances befitting Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly’s deepest fantasies, Banning has his chance to get his best friend back. The film constantly reminds us that Banning is a Secret Service agent with Special Forces training. Indeed he seems to be the only Secret Service agent throughout the entire assault on the White House capable of pointing and shooting a gun at an enemy advancing slowly across a wide open lawn. When the film ends with Banning carrying the wounded president out of the burning hulk of the White House, the reconciliation between them is complete. The scene offers a homoerotic subtext, but such an interpretation would require the screenwriters and director to have crafted any sort of text at all.

            The script moves from predictable plot point to predictable plot point. The North Korean villain issues demands, Banning messes them up, the film’s MacGuffin complicates things, only Banning recognizes that a SEAL attack won’t work, that the supposed death of the President is really a diversion etc. In the end, he must kill the North Korean villain, save the President, and disable the MacGuffin. Butler makes his best attempt at playing the action movie hero, but he lacks the charismatic ruthlessness of Liam Neeson in Taken or the weary charm of Bruce Willis in Die Hard. His banter with evil North Korean villain bores. Dylan McDermott appears as a traitorous Secret Service agent merely to offer a half-assed speech about the evils of political corruption. Melissa Leo wears a terrible wig and offers the aforementioned unintentionally hilarious recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance as the White House crumbles around her. Eckhart spends much of the film reacting to his staff being beaten and killed and giving evil North Korean terrorist everything he wants. The film seems woefully cheap as the film mostly occurs in the White House bunker, some hallways, and a Pentagon briefing room. The CGI seems conjured up by some lazy video game programmers on their off-day. This cheapness extends to the cast, as Secret Service agents seem to do everything including greet visiting dignitaries, get killed in huge numbers, and act as aides Acting President Morgan Freeman. All this cheapness adds up to one thing, one lousy movie.