2019's Best Movie is...

In a year notable for movies that redefined their respective genres, Angel Has Fallen just takes our top spot for being one of the decades' best action movies from a pulpy and spectacle-first commercial franchise

Gerard Butler and Morgan Freeman in 'Angel Has Fallen' (CREDIT: Lionsgate)

by Jack Linsdell

2019 has been a fantastic year for genre movies, with a surprisingly top-quality release slate that brought films that not only exceeded our expectations into our local cinemas, but also ones that redefined their respective and worn genres. We've had the reinvention of the horror-thriller genre (Alexandra Aja's sublime Alligator-themed flick Crawl), we've seen the live-action musical transcend it's "normal" demographics to expand it's audience appeal (with the Will Smith-led Disney remake of Aladdin) and watched the family-comedy-drama going back to it's Vince Vaughn routes (of combining loveable characters, emotional drama and real-life comedy) (with Sean Anders' superb Instant Family). We've also seen the teen-high-school-comedy become refreshed and succinctly modern (with Olivia Wildes' directorial-debut Booksmart) and the tired and clichéd action genre has been rebirthed (thanks to Ric Roman Raugh's threequel Angel Has Fallen). It's the last one that just pips these to the crown in our view...

Firstly, let me say this. I loved all of the movies above (both in terms of quality and entertainment value) as much as one another, and other flicks I've seen this year also are worthy of honourable mentions. But, partly to write this article, and partly to demonstrate a point of the significance of 2019 for genre movies, Angel Has Fallen gets that distinction...for now. 

Gerard Butler's Has Fallen series is one of those typical Hollywood accidental action franchises (think Bourne or Taken), except it's routes were more as pulpy, spectacle-first, R-rated series than the grounded, character-driven approaches of those led by Matt Damon or Liam Neeson. The movies were variations of "fine, I guess", although Antoine Fuqua's original Olympus Has Fallen is a very entertaining movie with excellent moments of tension, grounded realism and compelling character study that means I like it more than you. Yes, the 2016 sequel London Has Fallen may have been the series' highest-grossing instalment (thanks to $55 million in China to give it a $200 million worldwide cume on a $60 million budget, besting the $170 million of Olympus and the $127 million of Angel Has Fallen), but it isn't very good...at all. 

Butler was approached after the second film's blowout commercial success with scripts following the same over-the-top tone of the prior two, seeing his character (Secret Service Agent Mike Banning) surviving a hijacked Air Force One, in what was known as a "Has Fallen-esque remake of Air Force One". Quite rightly, Butler declined, and instead contacted former stuntman-turned-excellent-filmmaker Ric Roman Waugh to create a more realistic, grounded, character-study of Banning which with a lower budget ($40 million compared to the $60 million budgets of the first two), became Angel Has Fallen. I've talked about how the movie redefined a tired action genre before, but to those new here, most action flicks have become adverts for toxic masculinity. By that, I mean our protagonists are completely macho, one-dimensional heroes, who never get hurt, never have any emotional conflict to work through and seem to be experts on how to ride/drive/fly every mode of transport known to man. In Angel Has Fallen, Banning (Butler) is struggling with years of active service as a bodyguard, with many physical and mental injuries, but considers himself too full of "manly pride" to talk to his wife, family or boss. The movie becomes just as much about the importance of men sharing their feelings as it is about Banning clearing his name and saving the President. What's more, when Banning is shot he goes down in pain. And that pain lasts longer than the next scene too. He knows how to fight and protect someone, but what he doesn't know, he learns as he goes.

Basically, Banning is a subversion of your usual "action hero", which is refreshing for a genre riddled with what I call "James Bond fever". Talking of 007, and the movie is so well-written, the action so real, gritty and visceral, the characters so well-sketched and the politics so topical, that Daniel Craig's upcoming Bond flick No Time To Die will most likely be a worse action movie, and a poorer movie in general. That's saying something considering that most of Craig's Bond movies are better than the first two instalments of Butler's trilogy, and considering that his three-movie-series has only been around six years, compared to the sixty that 007 has. Added to that, a Bond flick normally costs on the upside of $200 million, whereas Butler and Roman Waugh have crafted a much, much cheaper movie ($40 million) which is by far one of the best action movies of the decade.

So, Angel Has Fallen (much like how Crawl brought new-life into the clichéd horror genre), takes our top spot because coming from a relatively poor and spectacle-first/heavy series, existing in a genre that has become as far fetched and unrealistic as a science-fiction movie, and having a considerably smaller budget than even a Bourne movie ($100-125 million), had no reason to be the sublime movie it is. Yes, it's purely entertaining if you just want to sit down and escape life, but it does it's entertainment right. However, if you so looked for it, Angel Has Fallen is also a well-made movie worthy of awards recognition, especially in it's script, direction and score aspects, that treats its story, characters and action seriously and with class. And, for that reason alone, by being the movie we all thought would be doomed to "fine, I guess" status (due to it's predecessors quality, budget and genre), Angel Has Fallen has become (in our view) 2019's best movie by being different.

So, if there's one lesson to be learned from the success of genre movies this year, be it Booksmart, Aladdin or Angel Has Fallen, it's that being different may not score you the biggest box office success (except for Aladdin), but it will certainly make audiences sit up and go "hey, that had no right to be this good" as they leave the cinema. And, I can't think of a better distinction to award our best movie of the year prize on than that.