White House Down (2013) or, Duck, Mr. President!

11/08/2013

White House Down (2013) or, Duck, Mr. President!

♥♥♥♥

+ Most Expensive Flop of the Year: 67.88 mil. $ range

The two stars appear fairly comfortable in a vortex of fiery chaos on the White House lawn on this poster for Roland Emmerich's White House Down

An under-qualified, but highly motivated security agent goes to a job interview with the Secret Service at the White House and brings along his politically obsessed tween daughter. But this turns out not to be a regular day: The White House gets attacked, and this job applicant suddenly has the life of the President of America to protect! And world peace!!!

White House Down is written by writer/co-producer James Vanderbilt (Zodiac (2007)) and directed by Roland Emmerich (Franzmann (1979)).
Channing Tatum (A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006)) is no Bruce Willis, and certainly no Arnold Schwarzenegger, but he does have charm and great on-screen chemistry with Jamie Foxx (Django Unchained (2012)) playing President Obama - ahem, I mean, President James Sawyer, - and that does cover for the fact that he is no real action star. And Joey King (The Conjuring (2013)) puts some real emotion and fine acting into playing his daughter, Emily.
The film has two great villains in Jason Clarke (Zero Dark Thirty (2012)) and James Woods (Once Upon a Time in America (1984)). Clarke looks like a mean son of a bitch throughout, and Woods uses his integrity and great face to full effect as the embittered, loony Secret Service boss. Other endeared actors in the movie include Richard Jenkins (The Shape of Water (2017)) and Lance Reddick (The Wire (2002-2008)).
White House Down takes some time to get started action-wise, which is fine; we get into the characters and are presented with some fascinating White House facts. There are some clichés in its first act, but none fatal.
Then the action begins, and the movie grows sillier by the minute. You're either charmed by it and will want to be stay on the pony ride and enjoy it, or you'll pout your way through it to the end, (or turn it off.)
I was charmed by White House Down. It does the new thing of having the president participate pretty extensively in the action. Foxx does an excellent effort in avoiding making an impression of Obama, and yet being Obama in most viewers' inner subtext, though of course under another name, and it is pretty funny to see him firing a rocket launcher at another vehicle from 'Ground Force One' in motion across the White House lawn. This scene was my favorite in the film, where huge, beautiful cars chase each other across the White House garden. What a thing to behold for a boy of any age. -It looks amazing, no least considering that the entire film was shot in Canada!

White House Down is cheesy and over-the-top in most every way. Tatum's character apparently can NOT die. Foxx is a fun, cool and jovial president ALL THE TIME. And Clarke is MEAN. Without the film ever being overtly political, though, chances are that you'll like it best, if you're not a die-hard Republican.
Luckily, the cheesiness of White House Down does not extend to a romantic ending between Tatum and Maggie Gyllenhaal's (Secretary (2002)) weak, whimsical character. That might have broken the camel's back for me.
White House Down is a really outrageous and irreverent action-party, and if you can enjoy it as such, you'll probably have fun watching it, as I certainly did. Emmerich's films are not intellectual propositions. They are popcorn movies and pure escapism. White House Down is a good example of this. It is good, fun entertainment.

Related posts:

Roland Emmerich: 2019 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Midway (2019) - Emmerich's big WWII turkey

2013 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED VI]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2012 (2009) or, Giant Mega-Stupid Movie!

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess

10,000 BC (2008) - Emmerich's mammoth turkey

Have a look at White House Down in its cool trailer here

Cost: 150 mil. $
Box office: 205.3 mil. $
= Big flop (returned 1.36 times its cost)

[White House Down premiered 21 June (Washington, D.C.) and runs 131 minutes. Vanderbilt was paid 3 mil. $ for his script by Sony Pictures. Shooting took place around August 20112 in Montreal, Quebec and in Washington, D.C.. Sony competed with Millennium Films in producing the film, as they were up against another high-profile White House attack actioner: Millennium Films' Olympus Has Fallen (2013) came about about 3 months prior to theatrical success. White House Down opened #4, behind holdover hit Monsters University, fellow new release The Heat and holdover hit World War Z, to a 24.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its 2nd weekend and grossed 73.1 mil. $ (35.6 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were China with 28.4 mil. $ (13.8 %) and Germany with 12.7 mil. $ (6.2 %). Emmerich returned with Stonewall (2015). Tatum returned in a short, a TV-series and a voice performance prior to his theatrical return in Foxcatcher (2014); Foxx in a short, 2 music videos and a voice performance prior to his theatrical return in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014). White House Down is rotten at 51 % with a 5.40/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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11/08/2013

White House Down (2013) or, Duck, Mr. President!

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