Line #114 Film/OlympusHasFallen


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/olympushasfallen.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:''[[TagLine When our flag falls, our nation will rise.]]'']]
3	->''"It takes fifteen minutes for your armed forces to reach the White House. We took it down in thirteen."''
4	-->-- '''Kang'''
5
6	[[JustForFun Because]] [[VideoGame/GodOfWar Kratos]] [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant just wrecked the entirety of-- wait, wrong media.]]
7
8	''Olympus Has Fallen'' is a 2013 action thriller directed by Creator/AntoineFuqua, and starring Creator/GerardButler, Creator/AaronEckhart, Creator/MorganFreeman and Creator/RickYune.
9
10	Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Butler) is distressed when he fails to rescue the First Lady during a snow storm. More than a year later, he takes it upon himself to rescue the President of the United States (Eckhart) and the country after the White House is taken over by Korean terrorists bent on revenge.
11
12	A sequel, ''Film/LondonHasFallen'', was released in 2016, which was followed by a third film, ''Film/AngelHasFallen'', in 2019. A fourth film, ''Night Has Fallen'', [[https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/gerard-butler-ric-roman-waugh-reteam-for-action-thriller-night-had-fallen has been announced]].
13
14	The [[DuelingMovies direct competitor]] to ''Film/WhiteHouseDown''. Compare and contrast it.
15	----
16	!!''Olympus Has Fallen'' contains examples of:
17	* ActionBomb: The tour bus and the suicide-vest terrorists.
18	* ActionSurvivor: [[spoiler: Connor Asher, Defense Secretary Ruth [=McMillan=], and President Ben Asher]], who still need Banning to save them but contribute by mostly behaving sensibly and not making things too easy for the villains.
19	* AirventPassageway: [[JustifiedTrope Rare justified]] example: The person going through said passageway is a child small enough to fit in it, and the passage is made of stone, avoiding the problematic "[[Series/{{Mythbusters}} Why, Thor the god of thunder is trying to enter my building!]]" scenario. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in-universe by the kid asking Banning how he was gonna fit in the passageway.
20	* AllAsiansKnowMartialArts: Kang's henchmen use flashy martial arts during the White House attack to their advantage against President Asher's poorly prepared detail and associates.
21	* AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs: The entire premise of the movie.
22	* ANuclearError: [[spoiler:Missiles being destroyed inside their silos would not actually trigger the warheads in real life, or spread any kind of radioactive contamination. We know this because it's actually happened before - the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Damascus_Titan_missile_explosion 1980 Damascus Titan missile explosion]] was a nuclear missile exploding inside its silo, and all it did was launch the warhead out of the silo like a potato cannon; due to safety features on the warhead, there wasn't any loss of radioactive material or any kind of contamination.]]
23	** Also worth noting that time from launch to detonation of a nuke is 30 minutes or less so [[spoiler:having a 5 minute countdown on Cerberus isn't the most logical plan.]]
24	* ApocalypseHow: [[spoiler:Kang's plan is to cause all of America's nukes to self-destruct at once, blanketing the country in nuclear debris.]]
25	* ArtisticLicense:
26	** The entire Cerberus code plot. They state the Cerberus computer is isolated in the White House, so they can't change the codes... but if it's isolated, how does it tell the [=ICBMs=] to self-destruct? Furthermore, even if it does have some way to transmit, but they can't change the codes for some other reason, what's to stop them from cutting the line? The only way this becomes even remotely plausible is if the White House has a transmitter powerful enough to transmit wireless to any part of the planet hidden... somewhere.
27	** Trumbull thinks that talking to the Premier of North Korea can convince the latter to call off the North Korean terrorists' invasion upon the White House. The Premier has no actual military power, only the supreme leader Kim Jong-un himself can command the Korean People's Army, and at the time of the film's release Kim Jong-un had no interest in directly talking to the U.S. Government.
28	* ArtisticLicenseMilitary:
29	** The idea that South Korea would be lost without United States support is ludicrous. The only major advantage the North Koreans currently possess is numbers, which the ROK (with significant American help) has spent sixty years coming up with ways to counter. The Norks have the big army, while South Korea possesses a greater technological advantage as well as an army that is highly-trained, well-fed, and equipped with modern weapons. American units are kept in South Korea today primarily as a guarantee that the US will stand beside the ROK in case things don't go as well as planned, especially if, say, the Red Chinese decide to join the party. Even if one were to charitably assume the North Koreans could overrun them on their own by sheer numbers, they'd bleed themselves dry doing it.
30	** [=ICBMs=] are only one of the three main delivery mechanisms for nuclear weapons. It's almost a certainty that the United States would have nuclear armed subs close enough to strike North Korea. In fact, they'd probably be preferable to launch an attack from, as the missiles wouldn't have to travel nearly as far.
31	** And averted when, after the first two F-22s were shot down, a third takes off and shoots down the C-130 with an AIM-120 AMRAAM. In the movie, the pilot closed to within visual range before firing his missile. To the uninformed this might seem as an error, the AIM-120 is advertised as having a range of 30 to 100 nautical miles depending on the model. However the 30 to 100 nautical miles range, is at altitudes of above 10000m and fired at an approaching aircraft. In reality if fired, as in the movie, at treetop altitude and from behind the target, due to the denser atmosphere and the lower relative velocity, the AMRAAM would have a range a little over 5 nautical miles. The Surface-Launched AMRAAM, which is basically a standard AMRAAM fired from the ground, used in the NASAMS system (also depicted in the movie) demonstrated a maximum engagement range of 8 nautical miles. To reach 21 nautical miles SL-AMRAAM-ER was introduced which swaps the engine of AMRAAM for the one in the Evolved SeaSparrow, creating a missile twice as big as the normal AMRAAM.
32	* BatmanGambit: Banning's provocation of Kang was likely an attempt to get him to leave the bunker, and he seems to have anticipated they would bring a hostage out to execute.
33	* BigBad: Kang
34	* BigNo: President Asher when Banning fails to save the first lady in the prologue, and again when a Korean spy executes an American nurse with a headshot.
35	* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Mike successfully rescues President Asher, prevents UsefulNotes/TheKoreanWar from restarting, kills a serious international terrorist menace and saves the country from being obliterated, but hundreds of lives, including many civilians, were lost.]]
36	* BoomHeadshot: Banning defeats almost every enemy he encounters this way.
37	* BoringYetPractical: As soon as he can, Banning deletes any sensitive info he can find to prevent the terrorists getting it. Unfortunately, that stuff is not what they want.
38	* CallBack: In one of their voice confrontations, Mike threatens that he's [[spoiler: gonna stab Kang in the head. In their final battle, Mike does just that.]]
39	* ChekhovsSkill: Subverted with the President's boxing skills, which he displays in a friendly spar with Mike at the beginning but never gets a chance to actually use because his captors bind his hands.
40	* CodeEmergency: The titular code: "White House taken by hostile forces, all agents on-site are dead."
41	* ColdBloodedTorture: Oodles, but Kang torturing the Secretary of Defense stands out. Also, Mike torturing some of Kang's mooks for information.
42	* ConservationOfNinjutsu: The terrorists make the fatal mistake of killing off all of the Secret Service agents and police protecting the White House. Once Mike Banning becomes the SoleSurvivor in that battle, it doesn't end well for them. The ones who fight him one on one last slightly longer than the ones who encounter him in a group.
43	* DarkActionGirl: Kang has several among his army of North Korean operatives.
44	* DeadpanSnarker: Pretty much everything out of Banning's mouth.
45	* DeadStarWalking: [[spoiler:Ashley Judd]]
46	* DeathEqualsRedemption: [[spoiler: Forbes]] takes his last chance to help fix things after being mortally wounded, calling Kang and claiming to have killed Banning, so they won't know he's still coming.
47	* DefconFive: The White House has been taken over, the President of the United States taken hostage, and Army Chief of Staff General Clegg declares they are at Defcon Four. Either this is this trope or a ''severe'' underreaction to the situation. For those who don't know, Defcon 4 is "Elevated Readiness". A situation such as the one depicted in the film would easily elevate the United State's Defcon level to either Defcon 2 or 3.
48	* DefectorFromDecadence: Rare villainous example in [[spoiler:David Forbes, formerly a member of the President's security detail]].
49	* DefiantToTheEnd: The Secretary of Defense:
50	-->"We may die here, but no way will I let my tombstone say 'she went down without a fight.'"
51	** [[spoiler: Ironically, she's the only one other than Banning and the President to survive.]]
52	** Also the last Secret Service agent standing (other than Banning) -- his last act, before being shot dead, is to tell the terrorist standing over him "Fuck you!" and shoot him.
53	* [[DieHardOnAnX Die Hard in the White House]]: The plot variation here is that Banning is soon able to establish regular contact with the Acting President and his senior security staff on a secure line. Once they establish that he's the only agent available, they help him as much as they can both directly and through the soldiers stationed around the White House. [[spoiler: But the rest is pretty much like Die Hard including the failed helicopter insertion on the roof, the main character trying to stop and then save the helicopters and falling from the roof, and getting injured in the process, one of the bad guys pretending to be an escaped hostage and the main character catching on very fast, etc]]
54	* DisposableWoman: [[spoiler: Ashley Judd's character is pretty much only in the movie to get killed and give Banning motivation to become a brooding badass. Also the poor unnamed intern who was shot as an example in front of the hostages to ensure their cooperation.]]
55	* DisproportionateRetribution:
56	** Kang's mom died from stepping on an American landmine, so he plans on destroying the United States and re-igniting the UsefulNotes/KoreanWar. This despite the fact that his own father was ''executed'' by the North Korean government for crimes against the People's Republic.
57	* TheDreaded: Kang.
58	* EasilyConqueredWorld: While not as heavily fortified as NORAD and somewhat limited by its front lawn being visible from the street of a large city, the White House is otherwise the most heavily guarded facility on the face of the globe. In the film, the guard posts along the fenceline offer no resistance, the surface-to-air missile and flak systems are powerless against an attacking gunship, and casualties on the part of the Secret Service are near total versus negligible casualties from the invaders. In reality, even after softening them up with a gunship -- which is usually more psychological than effective -- a half-battalion of North Korean militants with small arms wouldn't stand a chance against the snipers and automatic riflemen of the Secret Service, no matter their paramilitary training; sometimes quality cannot beat quantity, and there is plenty of both quality and quantity on the lawn.
59	* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: Kang.
60	* EvilPlan: Kang's is to remove US military presence from the DMZ to enable a North Korean invasion of South Korea, [[spoiler: as well as hijacking a nuclear self-destruct protocol to detonate warheads inside their silos and cause a nuclear holocaust in the US.]]
61	* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler: Forbes.]]
62	* FailSafeFailure: [[spoiler: A sensible recall system for nuclear warheads would not be able to detonate them in their silos, much less do so in such a way that they would produce fallout.]]
63	* FakingTheDead:
64	** Banning has Forbes call Kang to inform him that he killed Banning so that Kang doesn't expect to see him coming.
65	** [[spoiler: Kang has several of his {{Mooks}} and all the hostages except the President dressed up identically before boarding a helicopter, which is then destroyed by a suicide bomber, tricking everyone (except Banning) into thinking he and the President are dead, so they can sneak away.]]
66	* FauxAffablyEvil: Kang always speaks in a polite and even tone, even as he's orchestrating the murder of hundreds of people in the takeover of the White House.
67	* FinalBattle: A fistfight between Mike and Kang.
68	* {{Foreshadowing}}: Mike promises to stab Kang in the head. Guess how their fight ends...
69	* GeneralFailure: General Edward Clegg refuses to listen to Banning's warning to abort a SEAL raid because of an advanced anti-aircraft gun being deployed and most of the SEALS are killed. Afterwards, the House Speaker tells him that the present emergency was the only thing keeping him from relieving the idiot officer of duty.
70	* GenreSavvy: Both Banning and Kang learn enough about each other to try and anticipate things the other will attempt. In some cases they also taunt each other with facts about their lives, such as Kang talking about Banning's failure to save the President's wife.
71	* GoodIsNotSoft: Banning, and how!
72	* GreaterScopeVillain: Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, although he is not seen in the film.
73	* HappilyMarried: The President and his wife in the beginning. Also, Mike and his wife.
74	* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler: Forbes, again. After betraying his entire detail, as he is dying, he agrees to confirm over the radio that Mike is dead at Mike's request.]] Unfortunately, it didn't amount to much.
75	* HeroTrackingFailure: The terrorists are able to kill all of the Secret Service agents and police in the White House, but all of their bullets miss when fired at Banning.
76	* HiddenInPlainSight:
77	** [[spoiler:Kang runs his extremist paramilitary outfit whilst being the South Korean prime minister's head of security. It helps that prior to the events of the film, he'd never been photographed.]]
78	** [[spoiler: Also, the terrorists disguised as tourists, the tour bus that [[ActionBomb blows up]], and the garbage trucks carrying [[MoreDakka machine guns]].]]
79	* HollywoodHacking: ''Offender''. Thrice.
80	* HollywoodTactics:
81	** The heavily-armed gunship taking potshots at the White House defenders? Only a single missile is launched against it, instead of overwhelming its flares with a MacrossMissileMassacre. The White House snipers don't even bother taking cover against said gunship.
82	** The perimeter guards stand out in the open ''after the fence and guard posts have been breached'' rather than prudently taking cover and relying on superior firepower and numbers to defend the lawn.
83	** The Secret Service agents seriously do not have any idea of what cover is. They just stand there in the middle of the lawn, standing upright while trying to shoot the enemy that is rushing them. The last of them only take cover because Banning told them to take cover.
84	** With everyone else getting shredded by the AC-130's rounds, the DC Police don't take cover either, and instead stand out in the open trying to take pot shots with their service pistols... at a plane that can fly at speeds of at least 400 miles per hour.
85	** Pop quiz; you're a Secret Service agent inside the White House, behind cover. The bad guys have overlapping fields of fire on you from two machine guns, in an entrenched position. What do you do? If the answer is ''not'' [[spoiler:run out of the doors straight into machine gun fire to try and shoot them with your handgun, even after watching a dozen or two of your brother agents getting cut down doing exactly that, then you're smarter than the agents in the film.]]
86	* IdiotBall: Several examples:
87	** The US military in general, particularly the US Air Force and their failure to intercept an unidentified Lockheed AC-130 - a massive gunship [[MoreDakka armed to the teeth]] with [[{{BFG}} massive guns designed to shred both armoured and unarmoured targets]] - into a well known restricted airspace long before it could get close enough to Washington DC. A plane that large would've been noticed and intercepted much sooner than shown in the film.
88	** A particularly egregious example with the Secret Service agents and DC police, who make zero attempt to find cover. Instead they all just rush out of the White House to largely get mowed down by the terrorists - one even stands out in the open and tries shooting at the plane with their service pistol. Only Banning makes this attempt, and by the time he tells the remaining agents to do it, they are ridiculously outnumbered.
89	* ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy: The terrorists are able to defeat all of the Secret Service agents and the police around the White House. But any time they fire at Banning, their shots always miss, including one hilarious example of this trope when they fire into a secret hallway behind a wall where he and Connor were hiding in. There are quite a lot of bullet holes, but neither of them get shot, while Banning somehow manages to hit one of them while running away and blind firing behind him.
90	* ImprobableAimingSkills:
91	** Banning gets a pretty high head count with just a pistol.
92	** The pilots of the AC-130 are ridiculously accurate with the gatling guns, even though said guns are on the side of the plane, and they are flying and shooting at the same time - in real life, to maintain such accuracy, the guns aren't controlled by the pilots, but instead are operated by gunners located in a compartment behind the cockpit. To wit: they completely wipe out all snipers on top of the White House before getting shot down so the ground troops can successfully breach the perimeter.
93	** During the Hydra sequence, Banning gets the jump on four mooks, and in the following shootout sequence, he manages to shoot ''all four in the head''. Notably, the last guy hiding behind cover had his foot out in the open, so Banning aimed for that, then shot the mook's head ''as he was falling over''.
94	* ImprobableInfantSurvival: Connor, the US President's son. While a large part of it was due to him knowing about the secret hallway, he also would've been kept alive had he of been captured by the terrorists in order to force the President to give up his code. And when the terrorists shoot into the secret hallway he was in with Banning, neither one of them get hit.
95	* INeverToldYouMyName: [[spoiler: Forbes accidentally clues in Banning that he's working for the terrorists by dropping Kang's name, which only Banning, the terrorists, and the people they've told would know. And Banning knows ''he'' didn't tell him.]]
96	* InsecurityCamera: The first thing Banning does in the White House is disable the security cameras with his access code to prevent the terrorists from tracking him.
97	* JackBauerInterrogationTechnique: Banning [[spoiler:kills one prisoner to get the other to loosen up.]]
98	* KnifeFight: Practically everyone. There are a ''lot'' of knife fights in this movie.
99	* LargeHam: The Secretary of Defense during the entire movie. Most evident in her reciting the Pledge of Allegiance as [[spoiler: the mooks drag her around to make their escape.]]
100	* MakeSureHesDead: The terrorists do this to the fallen Secret Service agents.
101	* MilitariesAreUseless: In order to facilitate the DieHardOnAnX format, the armed forces have to have a shockingly poor showing defending the nation's capital. They not only fail to stop the incursion before it happens, and they don't really do anything but die spectacularly.
102	* MisplacedNamesPoster: Creator/AaronEckhart is Creator/GerardButler, Creator/MorganFreeman is Creator/AaronEckhart, and Gerard Butler is Morgan Freeman.
103	* MissionControl: Banning is able to access the White House's internal security control room to deactivate the security cameras so he can sneak around and later cut off Kang's communication from the bunker.
104	* TheMole: [[spoiler:Forbes]]. Additionally, Kang is one within the South Korean government.
105	* MonumentalDamage: In addition to the damage to the White House itself, the terrorists' AC-130 at the beginning of the movie ends up crashing into the Washington Monument, causing the top portion to fall off.
106	* MoreDakka: Multiple examples. The AC-130 has ''four'' gatling guns, two on each side; the two garbage trucks that become heavy machine gun nests and the Hydra anti-aircraft gun system that can even shoot off missiles in mid air.
107	* MundaneSolution: Kang's plan almost works because the President tells his advisers to give up their access codes thinking he would be tortured next and just have to endure, only for Kang to [[spoiler:just use a brute force hack to figure out the third part of the code anyway]].
108	* MyGreatestFailure: Banning's [[FailureToSaveMurder failure to save]] the first lady. However, most of his colleagues and even the President's son clearly don't blame him for it, although the President had him taken off because his presence was a reminder of his wife's death.
109	* NeverBringAKnifeToAFistFight: Twice
110	* NiceJobBreakingItHero: The President [[AFatherToHisMen orders his other two advisers to give up their access codes]], certain that he can resist any forthcoming torture and withhold the third. [[spoiler: Kang just brute-forces the President's code instead]].
111	* NotListeningToMeAreYou: The president at first doesn't seem to hear his wife suggesting she shave her head, but it's subverted when he later makes a joke about it.
112	* NotQuiteTheRightThing: The President has the South Korean diplomats brought with them to the bunker against protocol, to protect them from the terrorist attack. [[spoiler: Most of them are in on it, and they quickly take over the bunker.]]
113	* OhCrap: The reaction one of the mooks gets when [[spoiler:Mike stabs his partner in the throat.]]
114	* OneManArmy: ''Banning''. During the initial attack on the White House, he manages to take down at least a dozen of the enemy, armed with only a pistol. Almost all of the terrorists who survive the initial assault (about thirty) are taken down by Banning over the rest of the movie.
115	* OohMeAccentsSlipping: Gerard Butler's FakeAmerican is pretty solid, but not always.
116	* PlotArmor: During the initial White House attack, Banning is frequently right next to people and sets that are getting shot to bits. He's a good agent, but his ability to avoid all injury (in that sequence) seems to be due to luck.
117	* Post911TerrorismMovie: The collapse of the Washington Monument very deliberately looks exactly like the collapse of WTC 1, with the top third or so of the building falling downwards at an angle after an aircraft flew into it.
118	* PrecisionFStrike: ''Many'' times.
119	-->(after being asked by Kang to give Cerberus codes) '''Fuck you.''' (Gut Punch!)
120	* PunctuatedForEmphasis: When Ruth [=McMillan=] is dragged off by the terrorists, she yells, "I pledge allegiance! To the flag! Of the United States of America!"
121	* RedshirtArmy: The Secret Service gets overwhelmed by enemies armed with an AC-130, vehicle-mounted machineguns, rocket-propelled grenades, and suicidal dedication to their cause.
122	* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: According to Kang, the North Koreans' attack on Washington D.C. was payback on the United States government for imposing economic sanctions on their country, which for many decades made it incredibly difficult for North Korea to gain access to food and energy.
123	* ShellShockSilence
124	* ShownTheirWork: The producers got several things right about Kang's intentions, as stated to the President. He refers to the Korean War as a civil war that the US interrupted, which is how the North really does see the US intervention. He also blames the US for the fact that his people are living on subsistence, which is again, a real North Korean claim. Obviously the reality is that the North started the Korean War, and that the people are starving because the government keeps all the food for itself and the military, in addition to general mismanagement and over dependence on foreign aid.
125	** The AC-130 seems to be a converted Lockheed C-130 Hercules that was acquired and modified by the terrorists. The real AC-130 has guns only on one side (the left side), and they are always out. The reason for hiding the guns the way they did is that they knew the aircraft would be intercepted by US Fighters, and if it showed weapons it would be shot down immediately and their plan would be foiled.
126	** Banning is working at the treasury building, but still in the Secret Service. Historically, the Secret Service was originally created to catch counterfeiters. However, it has protected the POTUS since 1902.
127	** When, after the first two F-22s were shot down, a third takes off and shoots down the C-130 with an AIM-120 AMRAAM. In the movie, the pilot closed to within visual range before firing his missile. While the AIM-120 is advertised as having a range of 30 to 100 nautical miles depending on the model, that is at altitudes of above 10000m and fired at an approaching aircraft. In reality if fired, as in the movie, at treetop altitude and from behind the target, due to the denser atmosphere and the lower relative velocity, the AMRAAM would have a range a little over visual range (5 nautical miles in the case of a fighter sized target and about 8 miles in the case of a C-130 sized target).
128	** The C-130 used flares to decoy the incoming heat seeking missiles fired by the Secret Service from the White House. When the third F-22 shows up and fires it's missile, the pilots of the C-130 launch flares again to try to decoy it. Problem for them is the missile fired from the F-22 is a radar guided AMRAAM which ignores the flares, hits and destroys the C-130.
129	* SoleSurvivor: Several examples:
130	** Banning during the White House assault. All of the police and Secret Service agents die during the fight.
131	** One of the Blackhawk helicopters attempting an aerial insertion survives due to Banning destroying the Hydra anti-aircraft gun before it's able to shoot them all down.
132	* SpottingTheThread: [[spoiler:Forbes]] blows his cover with Banning when he mentions Kang by name; Kang never revealed this fact publicly, nor did anyone else.
133	* SurprisinglySuddenDeath: [[spoiler: Everyone on the helicopter Kang blows up to fake his and the President's death. The South Korean Prime Minister and Vice President are also suddenly executed by Kang when talking to the Acting President and Joint Chiefs]]
134	* TechnologicallyBlindElders: When reading the abort code, Ray Monroe reads the pound sign ([=#=]) as "hashtag", leaving Banning confused for a moment until someone tells him it's Shift+3.
135	* ThirdActStupidity: At the climax of the movie, all the villain has to do to achieve total victory is... nothing. If he twiddles his thumbs for five minutes, there's no possible way for Mike to foil him. But that'd be boring. [[spoiler: He's sealed in an impenetrable bunker along with the only computer that can be used to stop the countdown to annihilation. Rather than wait a few minutes until the U.S. is devastated and then sneaking out, he decides to immediately blow a hole in the wall of the bunker, allowing Mike to get in.]]
136	* TitleDrop: It's the code Secret Service gives when they are unable to hold the White House.
137	* TooDumbToLive: The two mooks that Mike interrogates who laugh in his face, considering he has a knife and many of his colleagues were killed by the enemy force the prisoners are a part of and are threatening the USA. Mike's response? [[spoiler:He stabs one in the throat.]]
138	** Virtually ''everyone'' (except Banning) has to be this in the movie to even justify the plot. However, special mention goes to General Clegg, who is ''wildly'' inept.
139	*** Constantly talks down to Banning and tries to keep vital information from him in a literal life-or-death situation.
140	*** Forces an insertion of Navy Seals on the roof of the White House despite having on-the-ground intel (from Banning) of a highly advanced ''anti-air weapon system'' and the occupiers '''''still having the President hostage.'''''
141	*** The cherry on top of this stupidity: following the failed insertion of Navy Seals, which resulted in 75% losses ''and was entirely his fault'' he thinks the most prudent course of action is to have Banning '''stand down''' while in the White House and give up his only on-the-ground operative. At this point, Speaker Trumbull has justifiably had enough of the general and tells him to sit down until he is asked a question.
142	* TortureAlwaysWorks: Used reliably by both Banning on captured North Korean terrorists and by Kang on the President's cabinet.
143	* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: In the lobby of the US Treasury building, Barack Obama's photo is on display apparently with other former Presidents, thus establishing the President in the story took office after him. Reelection is also mentioned, implying the film (assuming Obama finished his second) takes place in Christmas 2018 or 2019 and then skips ahead 18 months to either July 2020 or 2021.
144	* VillainsDyingGrace: [[spoiler:Forbes, defeated, lies about having killed Mike, giving him a bit more breathing room.]]
145	* WaistcoatOfStyle: Kang wears one.
146	* WorldOfSnark
147	-->'''Banning:''' (to Kang) "How about we play a game of ''Fuck Off''? You go first." hangs up
148	* WouldHitAGirl:
149	** The villains [[KickTheDog shoot a woman because she can't stop screaming]], and Kang personally beats the female Secretary of Defense half to death to get her security code.
150	** Also, a female terrorist uses a sniper rifle during the initial assault on the White House and, rather than being the token female villain as would normally be suggested by this, Banning promptly shoots her in the head. Another female terrorist is shot by a Secret Service agent.
151	* YellowPeril: In a film of heroic Americans from multiple races and ethnicities, the ''only'' onscreen Asian who isn't a cackling, flag-burning, freedom-hating villain is South Korean Prime Minister Lee, who unwittingly brought them to the White House as his diplomatic staff, and is promptly murdered by Kang.
152	* YouCantThwartStageOne: [[spoiler: The villains were looking for the President's son so they can threaten him to force the President to give up his Cerberus code, but Banning successfully gets the boy out of the White House and to safety before attending to other matters. Played straight when they break the code anyway, since they have two out of three and can brute-force the third]].
153	* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: [[spoiler:Banning offs Forbes once the latter lies to Kang (under Banning's coercion to redeem himself for betraying the United States) on the walkie-talkie that Banning is dead]].
154	** [[spoiler:That being said, Forbes' wounds are stated to be fatal, so this in context makes Banning's action a MercyKill]].
155	** The female hacker, and some of Kang's men and the hostages after they don the same outfits so that the police and Army couldn't identify between the terrorists and hackers and board a helicopter to escape. They're blown up shortly after the Blackhawk helicopter takes off.
156	* ZergRush:
157	** How the terrorist force manages to take the White House: after blowing a hole in the fence with suicide bombers, they rush across the lawn with large numbers of troops. About half of the terrorists are killed by the Secret Service and DC police, even with the support of their machine-gun trucks and the strafing run by the AC-130.
158	** The Secret Service's response as well is to run headlong into the fire from those trucks and AC-130 fire with no consideration given to cover. Since the terrorists have better numbers, they win out.
159	* WorfHadTheFlu: In the showdown between Kang and Mike, its pretty clear that Kang '''almost''' overpowers him because Banning is injured and extremely fatigued by that point. Otherwise it may just had been another CurbStompBattle on Mike's favor.
160	----

Context Film / OlympusHasFallen