White House Down – Movie Review
By Anne Brodie Jun 28, 2013, 13:57 GMT
While on a tour of the White House with his young daughter, a Capitol policeman springs into action to save his child and protect the president from a heavily armed group of paramilitary invaders. ...moreAs sometimes happens in the movies, two films of the exact same story emerge in a short period of time. Remember the Robin Hood wave? And Dangerous Liaisons? Gerard Butler starred in Olympus Has Fallen, about an off-duty cop visiting the presidential seat drawn into action when paramilitary terrorists attack.
Plenty of opportunities for good old flag waving and outré shows of patriotism with lots of flying bullets, canon, aircraft and dead bodies. We know who will win before entering the theatre.
White House Down’s Tatum Channing-produced version directed by thrill master Roland Emmerich is the same thing. The effects are massive though, and without giving anything away – if that’s possible because you know the outcome now – fearsome military helicopters fly down the Potomac and under bridges and the Capitol building explodes with a mighty bang.
People flee en masse and bombs just keep going off and cars crash. Someone almost drowns on the White House grounds. Okay, same story, different day, bigger, meatier jolts.
The difference is that despite its extreme exaggeration and massive and excessive special effects White House Down is really fun. It’s hard not to get caught up in Emmerich’s world of never ending movement and want to whoop and holler.
Audiences who know how manipulative it is won’t care; they’ll experience the kind of entertainment so perfect for summer that we haven’t seen in a while. It directs echoes the 90’s vibe that helped keep the movie industry alive and may revive it now.
Tatum takes his daughter (Joey King) to the White House for the tour she’s always wanted. She’s a tiny politico who has packed a lot of sophisticated information in a few years.
Inevitably she becomes personally embroiled in the events of that fateful day, as she records what she can from her hiding holes, and at one startlingly funny moment, grabs a giant American flag to wave. King’s the real thing, a solid actress with good instincts who began working at the age of four.
James Woods the revenge fueled traitor, Jamie Foxx is the president. He’s black, smokes, has a charismatic wife, sweet teenaged daughter, and is a nice person, statesmanlike. I wonder if it’s based on anyone in particular. Okay, well it figures into the plot line so I’ll let it go.
Woods recalls his awesome stagey films of the late 80’s and early 90’s. This is the perfect comeback vehicle for him. No one does threat the way Woods does and did in those blockbusters. Maggie Gyllenhaal’s a perfectly coiffed, savvy presidential aide who seamlessly directs the counterattack from within the bowls of the Pentagon. Not so much character as function. Oh, and she dated Channing’s cop in school.
An odd and great supporting cast includes Rachelle Lafevre, Jimmi Simpson, and Richard Jenkins and the fast rising character actor Jason Clarke as a man with a grudge.
White House Down is solid fun, not as interminably long as Emmerich’s usual special effects extravaganzas, and well worth the price of admission. It’s not Sartre or Shakespeare and there are inadvertent laughs but it will hold your attention and then some.
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Action adventure
Written by James Vanderbilt
Directed by Roland Emmerich
Opens: in theatres now
MPAA: 14A
Country: USA
Language: English
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