Set streaming itinerary for binge-watch of Butler’s films
The latest Gerard Butler actioner, “Plane,” has lifted off, a brawny thriller that knows just what it is and delivers on that promise.
The film provides an opportunity to take a tour through Butler’s career, as he has settled comfortably into his mid-budget action hero role in the past decade.
Though Butler appeared as Dracula in “Dracula 2000” (streaming on Starz), cropped up in Angelina’s Jolie’s “Tomb Raider” sequel “Cradle of Life” in 2003 (streaming on HBO Max), and co-starred as the Phantom in Joel Schumacher’s 2005 “Phantom of the Opera” (available to rent on all platforms), it seems the world didn’t much sit up and take notice of Butler as a major star until Zack Snyder stripped him down to his skivvies to play King Leonidas in “300” (rent it on all platforms), which became a phenomenon in 2006.
Butler’s newfound stardom took him down the rom-com path for awhile, as he put in turns opposite Hilary Swank in 2007’s “P.S. I Love You” (rent it on all platforms), Katherine Heigl in 2009’s “The Ugly Truth” (streaming on Starz and available to rent) and Jennifer Aniston in 2010’s “The Bounty Hunter” (streaming on Hulu and available to rent). During this era, he also managed to star in the 2009 wacky video game action thriller “Gamer” (streaming on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu), directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor.
But in recent years, Butler has stayed in a specific lane, and if you’re a fan of that lane, his work is quite satisfying. Often, it’s “Gerard Butler Saves
The World,” quite literally, in 2020’s “Greenland” (streaming on HBO Max) when he outdrives an asteroid hitting the Earth. If it sounds insane, it is, but “Greenland” is also better than it has any right to be, which is par for the course with the latest Butler blockbusters.
There’s 2018’s “Hunter Killer” (rent it on all platforms), a zippy submarine thriller in the vein of “The Hunt for Red October” or “Crimson Tide,” in which Butler captains a sub through treacherous waters in order to prevent a coup in Russia. Or, there’s his role as Secret Service agent Mike Banning in the bloody, bombastic “Has Fallen” trilogy, comprised of 2013’s “Olympus Has Fallen” (available for rent), 2016’s “London Has Fallen” (streaming on Netflix) and 2019’s “Angel Has Fallen” (available for rent), in which Butler plays a Secret Service agent with a very specific set of skills (single-handedly preventing terrorists from attacking world leaders).
In between all those “Has Fallens,” Butler co-starred in Alex Proyas’ delightfully campy and over-the-top take on ancient mythology, 2016’s “Gods of Egypt” (rent it on all platforms) in which Butler (a Scotsman),
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (a Dane) and Geoffrey Rush (an Aussie) play a bunch of Egyptian gods. It’s completely daffy but so much fun.
Often, Butler is even more fun to watch when he’s breaking bad, such as in 2009’s “Law Abiding Citizen” (streaming on HBO Max), directed by F. Gary Gray and co-starring Jamie Foxx, in which Butler plays a grieving man who takes justice into his own hands.
But Butler’s most entertaining recent action role might be in Christian Gudegast’s underrated “Heat” knockoff “Den of Thieves” (streaming on Netflix), which sees Butler eating a doughnut out of a bloodied box in the middle of a crime scene, chopping it up in a Benihana opposite a hulked-out Pablo Schreiber, and shouting into a phone, “They’re addicted to heists!” In “Den of Thieves,” Butler is the chaotic cop in the vein of Al Pacino’s Vincent Hanna, and Schreiber is a Long Beach-bred Neil McCauley on steroids. The two circle each other then clash in a downtown Los Angeles bank heist/ shootout, and it’s wildly entertaining, if you like that kind of thing. It’s a good way to cap off your Butler binge.