London Has Fallen is a 2016 political action thriller film directed by Babak Najafi and written by Creighton Rothenberger, Katrin Benedikt, Chad St. John, and Christian Gudegast.
It is the second installment in the Has Fallen film series, the sequel to Olympus Has Fallen (2013) and stars Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, and Morgan Freeman, with Alon Moni Aboutboul, Angela Bassett, Robert Forster, Jackie Earle Haley, Melissa Leo, Radha Mitchell, Sean O'Bryan, Waleed Zuaiter, and Charlotte Riley in supporting roles.
The film follows a plot to assassinate the world leaders of the G7 as they attend the British Prime Minister's funeral in London and Secret Service agent Mike Banning's efforts to protect United States President Benjamin Asher from being killed by Islamic terrorists.
The film was released in the United States by Focus Features under their recently revived Gramercy Pictures label on March 4, 2016, and grossed $205 million worldwide, with negative critical reviews for its production, special effects and action scenes.
As Asher's Presidential State Car arrives at St Paul's Cathedral, a large army of mercenaries led by Barkawi's son Kamran launch coordinated attacks on the city disguised as Metropolitan Police, the Queen's Guardsmen, and other first responders, killing the leaders of Canada, Germany, Japan, Italy, and France, damaging major landmarks, and generating mass panic.
Seeking revenge for the drone strike that killed his daughter and having poisoned Wilson to lure the G7 leaders to London, Barkawi promises to broadcast Asher's execution online when Kamran captures him.
Trumbull's staff identify a building owned by one of Barkawi's front companies, drawing massive power despite being seemingly unoccupied, and deduces it as Kamran's headquarters.
Banning and Asher escape just before the building is destroyed by the SAS squad captain using an explosive that Mike had planted earlier, killing Kamran and the remaining terrorists.
Marshall helps British authorities restore London's security system and, discovering that MI5 Intelligence Chief John Lancaster is Barkawi's mole, kills him when he resists arrest.
[15] On November 12, Mehdi Dehbi joined the film to play Sultan Mansoor, the youngest of three brothers whose life has been forever changed after a drone strike.
[16] Scotsman Bryan Larkin, who plays SAS Commander Will Davies, joined the cast as a "posh English guy", but Najafi and Butler made an on-set decision to have him use his natural Scottish accent.
In the United States and Canada, pre-release tracking suggested the film would gross $20–23 million from 3,490 theaters in its opening weekend, alongside Zootopia and Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.
The site's critical consensus reads, "London Has Fallen traps a talented cast—and all who dare to see it—in a mid-1990s basic-cable nightmare of a film loaded with xenophobia and threadbare action-thriller clichés.
Club wrote: "A murky, brain-dead stab-a-thon packed with so many inane chases, laughable special effects, and mismatched stock footage shots that it begs to be made into a drinking game, London Has Fallen is one of those rare films that is good at absolutely nothing.
[36] Variety described London Has Fallen as "effortlessly racist" invoking "familiar Islamophobia", a "terrorsploitation" fantasy designed to spread fear after the November 2015 Paris attacks, and "ugly, reactionary fear-mongering.
[40] On January 10, 2018, Holt McCallany joined the cast as Wade Jennings, an ex-military turned head of a technology company,[41] but was replaced later by Danny Huston.