White House Down (***)

Directed by: Roland Emmerich

Starring: Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jason Clarke, Richard Jenkins, Joey King, James Woods, Rachelle Lefevre

Seen: June 29^th 2013

*** Out of ****

The second attack-on-the-White-House movie of the year, White House Down is my personal favourite of the two. It is less brutally violent than Olympus Has Fallen, and it is more fun and downright entertaining. I rate both movies the same, but I pick White House Down as the winner. Where Olympus Has Fallen was very dark and excessively violent, White House Down is much more family accessible and while the tension is not as highly strung as in Olympus, it’s still there, and what’s there is more of an entertaining tension than a nerve-wracking one. White House Down fits in with Roland Emmerich’s earlier film fare (Independence Day, Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow), and delivers a healthy to overdone dose of shiny visual effects.

Desperate to impress his politico daughter Emily (King), Capitol Poilice Officer John Cale (Tatum) tries to get into the secret service. He is interviewed by a former college acquaintance of his though, in the form of Carol Finnerty (Gyllenhaal), and she believes he is unqualified. Deflated, Cale takes his daughter on a tour of the White House just as a group of terrorists, led by Emil Stenz (Clarke) start their takeover of the White House. Cale is soon the only hope left for the survival of President James Sawyer (Foxx), as his Security Service detail, under Martin Walker (Woods), gets ambushed in the White House Emergency Operations Centre. From here on out it is a desperate fight for survival and rescuing of hostages which at various stages includes even Emily and President Sawyer, and Cale not only has to rely on brawn and physical skills to uncover the truth and defeat the bad guys, he will need to think his way past some very cunning villains.

White House Down is chock-full of explosions and big action set-pieces with even the President saddled up with firing a bazooka in one instance. Cars make twist dives into pools and doughnuts on the White House lawn, helicopters (plural) are shot down, and nuclear missiles are almost launched. Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx share great chemistry and their comic timing is perfect whenever they share a reprieve from the merciless action, at times even as part of the merciless action. Jason Clarke is pretty terrifying as the almost emotionless Stenz and his plans seem almost impenetrable by the efforts of the protagonists. Technically I know that White House Down might not be as good as Olympus Has Fallen. Technically. But I enjoyed it more, definitely. It is a big, bold, fun, summer action movie, and on this occasion that was enough for me, exactly what I went to the cinema for.