Reviews

Hey what a great film, this definitely had undertones of Tarantino, in fact if I never knew any better I would have said this was one of his films. The three main characters were well portrayed, if a little OTT ! Eva Longoria is always easy on the eye, its just a pity we never got to see MORE of her if you know what I mean! Storyline whilst quite simple and basic was OK, there were certainly plenty of plot holes and the story was weak in places, but at the end of the day this was just a schlockfest of violence and one liners. Billy Bob Thornton, whilst getting top billing played quite a minor role which could have been developed more thoroughly and comedically. Although I have never heard of any of the main 3 actors, I am sure they must have had prior quality roles. There was a bit of schmaltz in this movie with the invalid boy ( well played by Thomas Brodie Sangster of Game of Thrones fame, giving a performance akin to Daniel day Lewis in My Left Foot) receiving some gush from the brothers. Anyway, a movie well worth watching, not an Oscar nomination, but still a good yarn and a laugh...

If you are 16 years of age and have zero life experience, you would probably think this film was good. Especially if you are American, the slow motion unfurling flags, lengthy speeches of integrity, honour (sorry honor) and God blessing of America, would have you beating your chest in a patriotic fervour. I can count on two fingers the amount of American films that have some sort of governmental aspect that don't rely on these stereotypical and hackneyed wishy washy film flam features. Why oh why do these producers think that a slow motion "Old Glory" will have the masses flock to cinemas and inspire Oscar nominations? This COULD HAVE BEEN a good film if it didn't rely on patriotic claptrap, taking aside that Gerard Butler isn't even American, and his performance was at best mediocre, the plot was full of holes and contrivances. If you did away with Cerebrus (what a ridiculous concept), did away with "I pledge allegiance to the American flag and the constitution", did away with the son who so EASILY escaped, and instead had a RUTHLESS protagonist, a BELIEVABLE goal ( I mean, withdrawing the fleet, yeah that was dramatic... not!) and some ways of foiling security that were halfway reasonable then yep, the film would have been OK. I mean, a load of diplomats simply walk into the White House, FULLY ARMED without being checked AT ALL ?? How silly. At best this film was a distraction, its no wonder it didn't do so well at the box office. It reminded me of the 1982 film "Who dares wins" about the Iranian Embassy in London. That film was 31 years ago, and even though very dated, was far more credible than OHF. Im not anti American or anything, but it really riles me that film makers rely so heavily on American patriotism, don't they realise that their market is only about 20% USA, please give the rest of the world a little credit without trying to instil in us your patriotic propaganda... OK enough said !

If you have nothing better to watch, then go to bed. SLJ was OK in this. the plot was full of holes, the acting wooden, the cast other than "Ethan" garbage. The "love interest" was a) poor actress b) not pretty c) not believable d)cheesy. The ending was predictable and cheesy. I reckon SLJ must have done this one for free, as a 12Mil budget is nothing these days. They definitely used a B list casting here, no doubt to compensate for SLJ fee. I think a lot of SLJ films are excellent, I can only assume he did this one as a favor to someone. Someone said there were a lot of twists in this movie, I can only imagine they have not seen a lot of movies outside of American RomComs as the "twists" were entirely predictable and obvious. I gave it 5/10, change that to 4/10.