WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Angel Has Fallen, in theaters now.
Angel Has Fallen puts Gerard Butler's Mike Banning through the wringer yet again as a Secret Service agent trying to save another American president, this time in the form of Morgan Freeman's Allan Trumbull. Mike shockingly discovers, however, that it's not Russia trying to frame him for an assassination attempt on his own leader to incite war, it's none other than vice-president Kirby (Tim Blake Nelson).
He's short of friends, sadly, as Kirby's hired Mike's best bud and ex-war partner, Wade (Danny Huston) to frame the former soldier, leaving Mike with no choice but to depend on the father who walked out on him when he was a baby, Clay (Nick Nolte). In the process, we see Clay's journey to redemption, and as director Ric Roman Waugh details their exploits, it becomes clear Nolte is indeed Hollywood's favorite modern deadbeat dad.
Two movies pop to mind on this front, with the first being 2011's Warrior. This film, directed by Gavin O'Connor starred Tom Hardy as Tommy, a fighter who abandoned his U.S. military post to compete in a mixed martial arts tournament to win money for the family of a fallen comrade.
He went toe-to-toe with his brother, Brendan (Joel Edgerton), who despised Tommy for staying with Paddy (played by Nolte) and his own girlfriend when Tommy walked away with their mom. However, Paddy tries to come back into both their lives as a recovering alcoholic aiming to make amends for the past.
When Brendan rebuffs him, not even wanting him to see his grandkid, Tommy takes him on only because he needs a trainer. As they butt heads over the past and Paddy not being there when Tommy's mom died, we see how wayward Paddy was in his heyday. It truly was a heartbreaking moment seeing Tommy chastising him to the point he got drunk in a hotel and recited Moby Dick, finally apologizing to his son who cradled him to sleep.
It was a guilt-trip both ways, with Nolte even garnering an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor that year. Whether or not you felt sorry for his character, Nolte truly perfected the trope of a waste of time dad.
In 2003, however, fans got an earlier taste of this with Ang Lee's Hulk. Nolte played a mentally unstable, David Banner, the biological father of Bruce Banner who abused his mom to the point he accidentally killed her in their living room in front of the kid.
David just couldn't handle the pressures of fatherhood, as well as being a genetics research scientist, which led to him experimenting on Bruce and also, the gamma explosion at New Mexico. David snuck back into his life, pretending to be a janitor, although he was way more sinister, even sending mutated dogs to attack Betty (Jennifer Connelly) to get Bruce to Hulk-out as he wanted his son's powers.
He raised the bar for selfish, worthless dads as he powered himself up a la Absorbing Man and the electric Zzzax to fight Bruce, in what Lee shaped as a Greek tragedy between a misguided father and a broken son. Honestly, as much as you hate Nolte for being this kind of person, he turns in amazing performances, and to flip the script, we do get something more altruistic in Angel Has Fallen.
He makes amends for walking out on Mike and as seriously messed up as their fractured relationship gets, their banter is oddly entertaining, giving us a buddy-cop feel in intervals. This leads to Nolte's Clay redeeming himself by fighting off attackers to protect Mike's family, eventually rebuilding their relationship when the civil war is over.
Here, you do have a bit more sympathy because Clay's suffering from PTSD from Vietnam, and he's not a raging drunk. This crafts a much more compelling and likable character, albeit one who was pretty incompetent in the old days.
Now in theaters, Angel Has Fallen stars Gerard Butler, Morgan Freeman, Jada Pinkett Smith, Lance Reddick, Tim Blake Nelson and Piper Perabo, with Nick Nolte and Danny Huston.