If you thought that the White House under attack actioner, Olympus Has Fallen (which was released earlier this year) silly, you are sure to find the similarly plotted White House Down, directed by action stalwart Roland Emmerich, preposterous! This time, Jamie Foxx plays a liberal, peace seeking US President, and Channing Tatum, an army veteran (naturally) that just happens to be in the White House the day that a conspiracy to remove the president plays out.
Largely predictable, the reveals of the bad guys come as no surprise, this is fairly standard action movie stuff. It is enlivened for me a little by the setting and subject matter because of my interest in American politics. Indeed, I enjoyed the build up to the attack more than when the action kicks in. The screenplay by James Vanderbilt, is pretty heavy handed, but it was fun looking out for seemingly innocuous moments in those early scenes that would turn out to be significant later in the film.
A clunky and pointless conversation between the President and his wife about a pocket watch, a shoe horned in reference to JFK building a tunnel for Marilyn Monroe, and a protracted scene about Tatum missing his daughter’s talent show flag routine, all prove to be important later in the film.
Maybe Vanderbilt was so busy congratulating himself for being so “clever” that he didn’t notice the story unravelling in the third act. The previously pacifist President, who’s failing eyesight is miraculously cured, starts firing a rocket launcher, a Fox News style snivelling cowardly reporter tries to perform an unconvincing heroic act, and a US air force pilot disobeys orders on very spurious grounds in an unintentionally hilarious flag waving (literally) scene.
Of the cast, the underrated Tatum is fine and James Woods adds some gravitas. However. Foxx doesn’t convince and the usually excellent Richard Jenkins has the faraway look of a man deciding how he was going to fire his agent.
So, if you are going to watch one movie this year where a lone hero saves American democracy, I’d recommend the leaner, more tightly plotted, Olympus Has Fallen.