In a nutshell; Roland Emmerich goes at the White House AGAIN, only this time Jamie Foxx is President and Channing Tatum runs around in a fashionably smudged white vest dodging machine gun fire and rocket launchers. It’s actually quite good.
Jamie Foxx gets his Barack Obama man of the people charm on as President James Sawyer and John Cale (Channing Tatum) is an ex-soldier looking for a job in the Secret Service to impress his daughter Emily (the very in-demand Joey King) and Agent Finnerty (Maggie Gyllenhaal), the President’s right hand woman, when some bad people take over the White House. Cale and his daughter are stuck inside when that happens, leaving him the opportunity to impress the President with his THINK FAST! soldierly skills and Cale Junior gets to make home videos of the bad people [primarily a band of ragtag slightly-miffed mercenaries]. The vids end up on the interweb, thoughtfully ensuring that the world has more to look at than rolling news filled with endless shots of reporters standing at the gates of the White House. Can Cale and Cale save the world? Yes they can.
Channing Tatum is awesome. Yes, the white vest thing is a bit too carefully reminiscent of John McClane in Die Hard but he pulls it off with the mixture of humour and physical presence that he brings to all his roles. Jamie Foxx is so-so but that’s not his fault, some aspects of his story were more than a bit rubbish. The opening scene fly-by is an particularly clunky construct. Maggie G was tough and likeable as usual. The nice surprise of the film was Cale Junior; not annoying and provided many refreshing moments not often seen in action films of this type.
White House Down is an action film which flaunts its cheesy audience pleasing credentials with gleeful abandon. Things are blown up, people are shot at hundreds of times without sustaining any injuries and vehicles go into swimming pools. What else could you need for a night in front of the tv?
Extras: DVD extras are four featurettes;’ A Dynamic Duo’: apparently Tatum and Foxx were so great together that they almost had to tell them to get a room, ‘Men of Action’: Tatum is praised for his willingness to do almost any stunt required of him ‘Roland Emmerich – Upping the Ante’: Director interview on why he decided to blow up the White House once more. Meet the Insiders: stuff about the rest of the cast. The best thing about these featurettes is that they keep it short.
Maryann has awarded White House Down on DVD three Torches of Truth
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