Antoine Fuqua has made a career of making tough, gritty, violent films. No one can accuse him of losing his touch. Olympus Has Fallen is a staggeringly intense film. The uncompromising, up close nature of the action will surely rankle a few nerves. Training Day and Brooklyn's Finest, his previous opuses to hardcore mayhem, are pimples on the cheeks of this film. The raw carnage was a surprise for me, which was thoroughly tempered by the ludicrous plot and poor special effects. Olympus Has fallen packs a punch with its fair share of tired clichés. It's at once hokey and gripping, a pulp feature that certainly doesn't hold back.

Gerard Butler stars as Mike Banning, the President's (Aaron Eckhart) former head of security, relegated to a desk job after a tragic accident. He witnesses a coordinated and bloody terrorist attack on the White House. Banning springs into action and fights the intruders on the front lawn, then into the building itself. The President and his staff have been double crossed. They are held hostage deep below ground in the White House bunker. The terrorist leader (Rick Yune) is spectacularly ruthless, showing no pause in taking innocent life. The Speaker of the House (Morgan Freeman) becomes the acting President. Along with the Head of the Secret Service (Angela Bassett) and the US Military leadership (Robert Forster), he engages the bad guys from the Pentagon situation room. The terrorist motives are initially unclear, but their primary target is discovered to be the President's son (Finley Jacobsen); who vanished in the attack. As the situation plays out, Banning becomes the unforeseen wrinkle in the terrorists plans. He must find the boy before they do, and uncover what the terrorists are really trying to achieve.

There are some plot points more fantastic than science fiction; the first being that a bunch of Asian terrorists could possibly have more firepower than the US Secret Service around the White House. The attack scene is pure carnage, people blown to bits while the government response looks like a sorority fire drill. After 9-11 and the multi-billion dollar war on terrorism, the feds, inept they might be, wouldn't be caught this off guard and unresponsive. The idea that bad guys could sneak more powerful weaponry literally on the front lawn of the White House is farcical. That's the first big pill of disbelief that needs to be swallowed. Then you have the Die Hard-esque, lone vigilante completely dismantling the enemy plans while they flounder to stop him. It's never clear why they don't just jump directly to their dastardly final goal, instead of running through the motions. It's a two hour film, so Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt's script couldn't wrap up that quickly. There's got to be at least an hour of filler where the overconfident military guys do tactically stupid things and get pounded.

What carries Olympus Has Fallen is the excellent ensemble cast. The scenes in the situation room and bunker are well done. The actors' emotions pivot from hysteria, to exasperation, to red hot anger. There's never a moment when the action takes a breath. The editing and camera work is tightly focused. Fuqua's chaotic action is mimicked by the actors' interaction. The film would have seemed silly and overblown if we didn't believe each character. The cast is strong, with each character having their own moment of glory. It doesn't end well for a lot of them, so the audience is emotionally invested with a loss. Gerard Butler does need to be singled out for his physical performance. He's an absolute beast here, pulverizing anyone in his way. His interrogation scene will have audiences laughing and horrified at once. We sometimes forget just how he dominated the screen in 300. Butler has that presence here. He just needed some better lines to go with it.

Olympus Has Fallen should be a big hit for the masses. The visceral action and excellent cast make up for the script issues. The special effects were subpar with the compositing looking too digital. That's not fatal, but takes it down a notch. Antoine Fuqua has had hits and misses. Olympus Has Fallen isn't his best work, but surely isn't his worse. It's got some major flaws, but has an earnest approach that keeps you entertained.