Olympus Has Fallen

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It's lucky that Gerard Butler's disgraced secret service agent is hanging about when North Korean extremists storm the White House and take the US president (Aaron Eckhart) hostage

It's lucky that Gerard Butler's disgraced secret service agent is hanging about when North Korean extremists storm the White House and take the US President (Aaron Eckhart) hostage.

It's a bloody, bludgeoning sequence that unfolds in real time for 15 minutes and gets the film off to a cracking start. From then on, Butler's one-man defence force turns up every which way to save the day and the free world.

Faced with some cheap and cheesy effects, Butler carries off his derring-do role with panache and it's a bonus that the pacy, explosive action doesn't leave you any time to examine the ropey plot which has been heavily recycled from Die Hard.