[ad_1]
In 2013, two films were released, both of which featured the White House being overtaken by terrorists, and both leaving the fate of their respective presidents in the hands of one man with something to prove: Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down. The former stars Gerard Butler as a disgraced Secret Service agent looking to save the U.S. President, played by Morgan Freeman, while the latter features Channing Tatum as a US Capitol Police officer looking to save the U.S. President, played by Jamie Foxx. The differences between the two are negligible, but it would be Olympus Has Fallen that won over moviegoers, with the film taking in triple its budget, while White House Down barely broke even. The success of Olympus opened the door for two sequels, 2016’s London Has Fallen and 2019’s Angel Has Fallen, mercifully saving us from Eiffel Tower Down or MoMA Down. The Has Fallen franchise has recently expanded to include a television series, Paris Has Fallen, only franchise mainstay Gerard Butler isn’t in the series (but is credited as a producer). So, if it doesn’t have a place for Butler, just how does Paris Has Fallen fit in with its predecessors?
Unlike ‘Olympus Has Fallen,’ ‘Paris Has Fallen’ Has Time to Breathe
Let’s cut to the chase: Paris Has Fallen shares little with its Has Fallen kin apart from its name. Apart from its action sequences, it has more in common with shows like 24 and Homeland but it does feel like what Olympus Has Fallen might look like if it was stretched across eight one-hour episodes as opposed to a 2-hour, straight-ahead bombastic action thriller, coupled with cynicism. The series begins on a very Has Fallen note, with a group of terrorists, masked as a French clowning troupe, hijacking a party at the British Embassy in Paris, led by a man named Jacob Pearce (Sean Harris). Pearce is a former French Foreign Legionnaire, one who survived an assassination attempt initiated by corrupt politicians, fearful of Pearce publicly exposing a high-reaching conspiracy. The attempt did, however, take the life of a Good Samaritan woman, one who rescued him from a previous attempt and her children, and now Pearce is out for revenge.
After a number of guests are slain, Pearce demands to see the French Defense Minister Philippe Bardin (Nathan Willcocks), only, again in true Has Fallen fashion, he’s been whisked away by Vincent (Tewfik Jallab), his head of security, and Zara (Ritu Arya), an undercover MI6 agent. Once the minister is secure, they return to the scene of the crime, only to find that Pearce is long gone. It’s from here on that the series leans away from its roots into 24 territory, as the agents join forces to track him down and find out what his motivations are. There are debriefings, gathering of intel, scenes of hand-to-hand fight sequences, and moments to just breathe.
‘Paris Has Fallen’s Eight Episodes Are a Gift and a Curse
By bringing the Has Fallen franchise to television in an eight-episode season, Paris Has Fallen has been given a gift. The extended screen time that a television series provides allows for Paris to be deeper and more complex than the movies can be. Themes around corruption, politics, and international alliances are allowed to grow into a captivating web that our heroes have to untangle, a web that can’t simply be taken out with gunfire and explosives. It also lends itself to an emotional depth in the characters over and above what film can do, especially films in the action thriller genre. There are questions of morality, what constitutes justice, and if the means justify the ends. Pearce may be labeled the antagonist, but he’s taking on a system so corrupt that it bleeds black, so is he a villain that needs to be stopped, or a hero that should be given a stage to tell what he knows?
Related
Eddie Redmayne’s Critically Acclaimed Thriller ‘Day of the Jackal’ Sets NBC Release Date
Eddie Redmayne and Lashana Lynch star in the celebrated thriller.
By the same token, the episodic format also weakens Paris Has Fallen. The Has Fallen films may go by too quickly to allow for deeper character and story development, but Paris Has Fallen has too much time. If the story was presented across six episodes, maybe seven, tops, the pacing would be just right. As it stands now, the series suffers from having too much filler material to meet all eight hours of content, slowing down the series and thereby losing engagement with the audience. That isn’t the fault of Jallab and Arya, however, whose chemistry strengthens a duo that complements one another in the best of ways. In fact, it’s possible to envision just how well Butler would fit in with the agents in a second season, one that truly connects the two worlds of the Has Fallen franchise.
Paris Has Fallen is available to stream in the U.S. on Hulu
Paris Has Fallen
- Release Date
- September 23, 2024
- Cast
- Tewfik Jallab , Ritu Arya , Sean Harris , Ana Ularu , Nathan Willcocks , Jérémie Covillault , Emmanuelle Bercot , Raha Rahbari , Cameron Cook , Fantine Harduin , Karl Collins , Michael Shelford , Jamie Maclachlan , Damien Bellard , Nagisa Morimoto , Camille Rutherford , Akbar Kurtha , Clémentine Baert , Paul Gorostidi , Laurent Lucas , Karina Testa
[ad_2]
Source link
