White House Down (2013)
Directed by Roland Emmerich
Capitol Policeman John Cale has just been denied his dream job with the Secret Service protecting President James Sawyer. Not wanting to let down his little girl with the news, he takes her on a tour of the White House, when the complex is overtaken by a heavily armed paramilitary group. Now, with the nation's government falling into chaos and time running out, it's up to Cale to save the president, his daughter, and the country.
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What critics say influenced White House Down
Unlike so many '90s films, though, the form that WHD takes is not exactly " Die Hard in an X", with X referring in this case to the White House; it was this exact tack taken by this spring's Olympus Has Fallen , a cheaply-made rushed knock-off of WHD that, as it turns out, is almost precisely at the same quality level as the movie it was copying, though for different reasons.
Director Roland Emmerich takes a break from blowing up the entire world (and completely blowing Anonymous ) to direct this Die Hard knock-off without shame, and he’s perfectly suited to the material, transforming a concept that Olympus Has Fallen made gruff and violent into an over the top crowd-pleaser.
While there’s more than a little of a “Die Hard” vibe here (more than in “Die Hard 5,” actually), Emmerich and screenwriter James Vanderbilt wisely don’t try to turn Tatum into a junior Bruce Willis.
White House Down is yet another take on the old Die Hard formula, with more than a few nods to the fun Air Force One (1997) and to Emmerich's own Independence Day (1996).
With its Die Hard -in-the-White-House premise already taken out in a pre-emptive strike by Olympus Has Fallen earlier this year, White House Down suddenly had to do more than just rely on its high concept.
You see, the bad guys have also brought along a computer hacker (Jimmi Simpson)—one of the evil kind who, in an apparent nod to Die Hard , enjoys blasting Beethoven symphonies as he cracks the NORAD missile launch codes, one by one.
This affords Tatum and Foxx a lot of shared screen time, in which they project an effortless, ingratiating chemistry that recalls Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in the first “Lethal Weapon” pic, the characters bonding as fathers and patriots whenever they aren’t dodging bullets.
What made classics like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon so great?
If “Lethal Weapon” and “Die Hard” had a baby, the offspring would look something like this.
That stunt occurs in one of the sequences of antic humor — in this case a Keystone Kops car chase — which, despite the tonal strangeness alongside the wanton destruction, prove that Foxx and Tatum are able heirs to the “Lethal Weapon” brand of brothers-in-arms banter.
With almost no storytelling logic or topical relevance, clumsy plot twists and absurd motives for its villains, it resembles a rejected idea for another Lethal Weapon sequel.
White House Down is yet another take on the old Die Hard formula, with more than a few nods to the fun Air Force One (1997) and to Emmerich's own Independence Day (1996).
The Presidential action hero has evolved from Harrison Ford yelling "Get off my plane!" in "Air Force One" to Foxx kicking away from a bad guy's grasp with "Get your hands off my Jordans!"
Then the president of the United States fires a rocket launcher out the window of a car while terrorists are machine-gunning him—a vicious burlesque, perhaps, of Harrison Ford's President Bad-Ass back in Air Force One.
This isn’t Air Force One, with the president kicking much ass - President Sawyer has to put on his glasses before taking a shot at a bad guy.
Double down on a “Die Hard” and “Air Force One” marathon as this second take of D.C. destruction isn’t worth your financial endorsement.
Director Roland Emmerich has attacked the White House before, in "Independence Day," a much better film, which is referenced with a little throwaway line.
The latest epic from master of disaster Roland Emmerich is his most entertaining since “Independence Day” — amusingly referenced by a White House tour guide in the new film, which is a lot funnier than you’d guess from some of the trailers.
Directed by Roland Emmerich (the guy who blew up the White House once before in Independence Day), it has that old-school buddy action vibe, but it falls just short of really working.
White House Down is yet another take on the old Die Hard formula, with more than a few nods to the fun Air Force One (1997) and to Emmerich's own Independence Day (1996).
Directed by Roland Emmerich in his grand-scale action vein ("Independence Day," "2012"), "White House Down" escalates the pressure and stays ahead of the audience without ever degenerating into a series of random jolts.
"Independence Day" director Roland Emmerich has blown up the White House before — it's even referred to in "White House Down" — in an alien attack that was more credible than events portrayed here in a screenplay by "The Amazing Spider-Man" co-writer James Vanderbilt.
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In an echo of the spring of 1997, when "Dante's Peak" and "Volcano" promised moviegoers death by lava, and the summer of 1998, when "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon" threatened audiences with extinction via asteroid, "White House Down" arrives three months and a week after "Olympus Has Fallen," a very similar story about a tough agent turned rescuer/avenger after circumstances trap him inside the White House during an armed assault that -- worst case scenario -- could escalate into nuclear war.
When we think back to other disaster film presidents, we find people like Morgan Freeman (“Deep Impact”), Bill Pullman (“Independence Day”), and Danny Glover (“2012”), all of whom seem like they really could be the president.
Of course, on this day, Agent Walker (James Woods channeling Ed Harris in The Rock), head of the President’s Secret Service, has planned an orchestrated attack—like Harris, he’s been betrayed by his country over the death of son in a covert mission—that will unleash a gang of America’s enemies on the White House.
White House Down es, sin lugar a dudas, un extraordinario regreso al mejor cine del género desde los tiempos maravillosos en los que los aficionados de verdad al mismo (no, no me estoy refiriendo a ti, saga de Fast and the Furious), disfrutaban de clásicos (y en ocasiones hasta obras maestras) como Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, Air Force One o The Rock.
Setting aside the question of whether the world really needed a second White House takeover movie, in terms of sheer craftsmanship and professionalism, “ White House Down” is to “Olympus Has Fallen” what “Raiders of the Lost Ark” was to the 1985 Richard Chamberlain-Sharon Stone version of “King Solomon’s Mines.”
In an echo of the spring of 1997, when "Dante's Peak" and "Volcano" promised moviegoers death by lava, and the summer of 1998, when "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon" threatened audiences with extinction via asteroid, "White House Down" arrives three months and a week after "Olympus Has Fallen," a very similar story about a tough agent turned rescuer/avenger after circumstances trap him inside the White House during an armed assault that -- worst case scenario -- could escalate into nuclear war.
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In an echo of the spring of 1997, when "Dante's Peak" and "Volcano" promised moviegoers death by lava, and the summer of 1998, when "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon" threatened audiences with extinction via asteroid, "White House Down" arrives three months and a week after "Olympus Has Fallen," a very similar story about a tough agent turned rescuer/avenger after circumstances trap him inside the White House during an armed assault that -- worst case scenario -- could escalate into nuclear war.
Smart and spunky, Emily suggests a potentially more amusing rewrite in which a rogue urchin does to the White House invaders what Macaulay Culkin did to those burglars in "Home Alone."
Firstly, her character is a clichéd, girl wonder composite that would be out of place in a “Home Alone” film.