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White House Down: Gets Old Real Fast

By Riley Webster · July 1, 2013

Roland Emmerich's new attempt at filmmaking relevancy is the epitome of a "Kitchen Sink Movie.” They just threw everything into this movie except, y'know, the kitchen sink. I thought about this around the halfway point, but then Channing Tatum got into a fist fight with a henchman in a kitchen, and then Jamie Foxx shot him to pieces at the sink, and I thought, "Jesus, they even have the friggin' kitchen sink, too!"

White House Down is not a good movie. That much is certain (and kinda obvious many months ago, before it even came out and tanked at the box office). But it can be fun, and there are pleasures here, albeit minimal ones. If you liked the action films of the 90's (many of them made by Emmerich himself), then you'll probably like the old-school charm of an action flick all set in one building, with almost no shakey Quesy-Cam's, with lots of long takes and crane shots, and an endless opening act setting up a dozen people you couldn't care less about.

Personally, I like 90's action movies. I even dig some of the ones made by Emmerich, such as his most famous American disaster flick, Independence Day. But if you've re-watched that movie recently, you will have realized it was far from perfect, and it too set up cardboard characters for almost an hour before the aliens started showing up. White House Down does the same (I believe the first explosion is 45 minutes in), and by that point I was half-asleep.

But I'll get to that in a minute. Let's start by talking about the positives here. White House Down is the most unpretentious film of the summer. It has no loftier aspirations, unlike, say, Man of Steel, which was often bogged down by its own operatic nature. This bad boy only exists so that teenage boys can go "wow!" and "whoopie!" during all the shoot-out's and fist fights. And the action scenes, I must say, are enjoyable, including the most ridiculous car chase I've seen since Shoot 'Em Up. I think Emmerich filmed these scenes with a wink and a nudge to the audience, and I appreciated that.

But looking back on it, I can't really think of anything else that was good about White House Down. Every actor is miscast—Channing Tatum, as the hero, lacks the humor of Bruce Willis in Die Hard (a movie this one desperately tries to emulate). Jamie Foxx looks bored as the President, James Woods is just going through the motions, and Maggie Gylenhall is miscast simply by being Maggie Gylenhall. The only performance that I really liked was, shockingly, the young girl that plays Tatum's daughter-in-danger.

The story is simple—terrorists attack the White House, led by an inside man. Tatum is on a tour with his daughter, escapes capture, tries to rescue the president, and eventually Saves The Day. Nothing about this kind of movie is surprising (including the obligatory and deflating "twist character revelation" at the end). But there's something slightly charming about a movie this basic. On its own mundane levels, it's kinda cute, like a puppy that keeps humping your cushions. You laugh for a minute, but then it gets old real fast.

Emmerich directs with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. The script by James Vanderbilt is filled with stupid dialogue, even stupider motivations, and yet even stupider coincidences that roll the plot along (one computer hacker bad guy is killed by his own key card inexplicably not working on his own bombs. Why didn't his card work, and why did his bombs blow up in his face? Who knows). The movie keeps trying to be Die Hard, but it's too bloated and over-long for that, as well as lacking any sort of tension or delectable villain.

And God, that opening act! Never before have I seen a movie where almost 5 scenes in a row happen where a man goes to his Important Job while talking to his wife, who is either Worried/Angry/Supportive of his all-wonderful-ness. I'm not someone who usually harps on misogyny, but something about those scenes bugged me. That, and the incredible amount of boredom those scenes induced (also, am I the only one that thinks Channing Tatum and Rachelle Lefevre look way too young to have an 11 year old daughter?).

At the end of the day, I don't really know what more to say about White House Down. If you saw the trailers and commercials and thought "Oh boy, that's for me!" then don't let me dissuade you. If you didn't say that, then avoid it like the plague. There is definitely an audience for big, loud, dumb 90's action throwbacks. When they're done right, they can be really wonderful. Unfortunately for me, White House Down just wasn't done right.