White House Down

After destructing the entire world with his last film 2012, director Roland Emmerich is back again with another destruction mission of burning down the safest house in the world; white house. White House Down is a movie that will entertain you mainly because of the on screen chemistry of Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx. But in terms of content, the movie isn’t that fresh to impress you completely.

White House Down deals with a day at the white house where a US Capital Officer John Cale is there along with his daughter Emily to attend an interview to get into the secret service. John couldn’t impress the authorities and while returning, he and Emily join the White House Tour. In the midst of these a group of people disguised as contracted workers at the White House starts their operation to capture the president of the United States of America. Bombs are exploding, guns are on fire and John Cale risks his life to get out there and find his daughter. In the meanwhile he happens to free the president from the gang and the movie basically narrates how John Cale and President James Swayer manage to escape from the white house with almost every possible exit being shut down in front of them.

If you have seen Diehard 4.0 where an ex-security officer takes revenge on the American security forces for the disrespect they shown to him, White House Down will surely remind you about similar situations. While Thomas Gabriel was operating from a moving truck to destruct America’s security systems, here the antagonists are right there in the White House. There is a hacker in the team to control both financial and defense related operations. Much like McClane , Cale is also there to rescue his girl and the villains are also making use of that emotion. To add more to the similarity the bad ones are not terrorists, they are there to take revenge on the president for the personal loses they had on the war field. Even with all these dependencies in the script, White House Down still manages to engage you in an entertaining way. The combination scenes of Foxx and Tatum will surely make you laugh. The gradual progress of the President from a normal man to armed man was quite funny. The long second half action sequences were kind of disturbing as they just made the screen play tiring.

On screen, Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx did their part nicely as the main leads. More than Tatum, I liked the way Jamie Foxx rendered the role of the president. Jason Clarke, Maggie Gyllenhaal Richard Jenkins and James Woods weren’t used that much, but they did their part nicely. Joey King was also good as the little Emily.

On the making side, Rolland Emmerich couldn’t make the scene alarming as his previous ventures; instead it was more of a fun affair. The script as I said depends too much on the existing concepts and I can’t really believe that cracking the white house is that easy.  The fighting sequences are satisfactory. The visual effects quality wasn’t that great (one or two shots are exempted). Good cinematography. Edits aren’t that cool.

Overall, White House Down is an average deal. It has the fun elements to keep you engaged, but fails to create a fresh take with some convincing cracking techniques. I am giving it a 2.5/5. Barack Obama will surely feel cool about him.