Olympus Has Fallen

In Antoine Fuqua’s 2013 film the White House falls to a simultaneous assault from the air and the ground, with Mike Banning, a bodyguard removed from duty, left inside. The siege is over within the first half hour; the rest is a one man clearance, corridor by corridor. The violence is not moved off camera: hostages are executed in shot and the knife work is held in close up. That is where it parts company with the PG-13 treatment of the same premise released that year. The production did not shoot in Washington. In Louisiana it built only the flat north face of the building, with portico, steps, drive, fountain and railings real and the city added digitally; around thirteen hundred effects shots ended up in the film, and the Washington Monument collapse and the attacking gunship were made in the computer. The trailer left a separate mark: because it used genuine emergency alert tones, on 3 March 2014 the FCC proposed fines of 1.12 million dollars against Viacom, 530,000 against NBCUniversal and 280,000 against ESPN. A good fit if you want the building lost early and the rest spent in narrow interiors. Not for anyone expecting the family friendly tone of that year’s PG-13 counterpart, since a child is under threat and the killings are shown uncut.