Director: Roland Emmerich.
Starring: Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jason Clarke, Richard Jenkins, Joey King.
Running Time: 131 minutes.
Certificate: 12A.
Synopsis: After being denied his dream job with the Secret Service, policeman John Cale (Channing Tatum) takes daughter Emily (Joey King) on a tour of the White House. When heavily armed invaders storm the White House, Cale must race to save his daughter, President James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx) and the nation.
OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN… Again? In a story startlingly similar to Antoine Fuqua’s film from earlier this year, Roland Emmerich goes to show for a second time that he really doesn’t seem to like the President’s house. With a star-filled cast, audiences may have been expecting something special from an action-packed film with the likes of Oscar winner Jamie Foxx, but WHITE HOUSE DOWN fails to deliver anything audiences want or need.
The reason for this lies in the plot, as it appears Roland Emmerich has been watching too much television. Not only is there a gratuitous self-reference to INDEPENDENCE DAY, but throughout the film (intentionally or not) several plot details are stolen from at least three DIE HARD installments. It all sounds very familiar – the audience is presented with a manic, wild-eyed sidekick, a bespectacled computer genius who then goes on to take control of Washington DC, the use of Beethoven as background music, a bad guy who notices one of the hostages is related to the fly in his ointment, a group of terrorists who steal money from the Federal Reserve only to have a hidden agenda, and to top it all off, Channing Tatum running around in a white vest. All WHITE HOUSE DOWN needs is Sgt. Al Powell and ‘Let It Snow’ and it could have been called DIE HARD 6. Add this to further plot details stolen from THE ROCK and at least two series of 24, and it’s quite surprising the film got made in the first place.
Ignoring the quite obvious plagiarism, the film does have some good points. The action is nonstop once it drags past the opening, overly dull fifteen minutes and there are explosions aplenty. The set pieces progressively become bigger and bigger, resulting in a high-speed chase on the front lawn of the White House that sees the peace-loving president Sawyer wielding a rocket launcher, followed by a rooftop fire fight where the American choppers shoot at Tatum thinking he’s one of the bad guys, which again is more than a little too similar to the antics of John McClane.
While the film’s action is entertaining, it ends up suffering for it. With actors like Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jamie Foxx and James Woods in the cast, there could have been more moments to utilise their acting prowess, though there are moments between Foxx and Tatum outlining very real home truths about soldiers returning from war only to find no work. Matched with their buddy partnership throughout the film, there are good moments and, in truth, the two actors carry the film as a whole. But unfortunately, WHITE HOUSE DOWN is a victim of lazy scriptwriting and direction.
WHITE HOUSE DOWN is released in UK cinemas on Friday 13th September.
