Angel Has Fallen (2019)

Angel Has Fallen is a 2019 American political action thriller film directed by Ric Roman Waugh. It is the third installment in the Has Fallen film series, following Olympus Has Fallen (2013) and London Has Fallen (2016). The film stars Gerard Butler, Morgan Freeman, Jada Pinkett Smith, Lance Reddick, Tim Blake Nelson, Piper Perabo, Nick Nolte, and Danny Huston. The plot again follows United States Secret Service agent Mike Banning as he races against time to clear his name after being framed for a drone attack on President of the United States Allan Trumbull.

The film was officially announced in October 2016, and Roman Waugh was hired in July 2017. New members of the cast were added in early 2018, and filming began in February of that year around Bulgaria and the United Kingdom.

Secret Service agent Mike Banning undergoes training at a military facility in Virginia, owned by his former Army Ranger commanding officer Wade Jennings, now CEO of private military company Salient Global. He is recommended for the position of Secret Service Director by U.S President Allan Trumbull, to replace retiring director David Gentry, but hides the fact that he suffers from migraines and insomnia and takes painkillers to cope with chronic back pain from previous combat injuries.

While Trumbull is on a private fishing trip at Queen’s Lake in Williamsburg, a swarm of armed drones attack and kills his protection detail, with only Banning surviving and saving him. Both are incapacitated, but Banning recovers while Trumbull is left in a coma.

FBI agent Helen Thompson is presented with falsified evidence implicating Banning in the attack, leading to his arrest. En route to a detention facility, Banning’s transport is ambushed but he escapes after killing the attackers and unmasking them as mercenaries from Salient Global with whom he partook in a training exercise.

Realizing that Jennings has betrayed and framed him, Banning calls his wife Leah from a nearby gas station, letting her know he is alive and determined to expose the real perpetrator. The call alerts Thompson to his location, forcing him to steal a militia man’s 18-wheeler truck while pursued by many police officers. Banning escapes after crashing the truck and eventually makes his way to his estranged father, Clay, who’s been living off-grid in a cabin in the backwoods of White Hall, West Virginia.

At the White House, Vice President Martin Kirby, now acting president, tells the press that Banning is responsible for the assassination attempt with support from the Russian government. Banning and his father see Salient mercenaries approaching the house, and Clay detonates multiple explosives around the perimeter, killing the would-be attackers as he and Banning escape. They split up; Clay goes to Banning’s house and saves Leah and Lynne from a kidnapping attempt by Wade’s mercenaries.

Finding the bodies of Jennings’ gunmen lined up against Clay’s cabin, Thompson deduces that Banning was being set up after all. Trumbull awakens from his coma and Kirby is revealed to be Jennings’ secret co-conspirator, planning to retaliate for Trumbull’s “attempted assassination” against Russia. Thompson and another agent, Ramirez, confront Jennings on an airfield, but he kills them both.