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+ Most Expensive Flop of the Year: 67.88 mil. $ range
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| 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
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.]
What do you think of White House Down?
