Remember the classic motorcade ambush scene in Phillip Noyce‘s Clear and Present Danger (’94) when an army of drug-cartel mercenaries killed several U.S. government guys in their SUVs? Remember when that scene was a hot new turn of the screw and action fans everywhere were talking about it? Babak Najafi‘s London Has Fallen (Gramercy, 3.14) is the same old idea, trying for the same old juice. Except recent events have killed the fantasy element. A couple of weeks ago CNN.com’s Lewis Beale noted that there’s something “profoundly irresponsible” about such a film being released in the wake of San Bernardino, Paris and Burkina Faso. “You have to wonder why a Hollywood studio would put out a film such as this one, which is practically guaranteed to ratchet up the paranoia factor,” Beale wrote. “It is, after all, hitting theaters at a time when fear of terrorist attacks is at an all-time high.” It’s pornography, all right. I would have a film as good as Clear and Present Danger again.
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