''Oh my god, that's the President! He has a rocket launcher!''
It's because of that line, and that alone, that I watched Roland Emmerich's White House Down. It's a line that says 'Yes, what we're making is silly, now stop worrying about plot, character and logic, and just enjoy.' And I tried. I really tried.
It opens well enough, getting everyone in the right place at the right time, quickly introducing Channing Tatum's US Capitol police officer, Jamie Foxx's US President (a strange bit of casting that mostly works), and Maggie Gyllenhaal's Special Agent, all of whom are fairly likeable. In previous Emmerich films the plot mechanics required to get the story going have been so head slappingly stupid that a concussion is an ever present danger. Here it's all kept nice and simple. No plot somersaults required. Bad people have taken over the White House and one man (Tatum), a mostly ordinary man (except for his marksmanship, hand-to-hand combat skills, and his ability to induce shaky-gun-hand-syndrome in the baddies), must keep them from seeing through their nefarious plan to... Take over the government? Destroy America? Destroy everything but America? The actual plan turns out to be convoluted, counterintuitive and nonsensical. Which is fine because it really doesn't matter, it's just a means to an end - and that end consists of giving the President a rocket launcher. It's just a shame how long it takes to get there.
After the table setting of the opening act the film ought to have been one absurd set piece after another, interspersed with barbed (but just about respectful) bickering between Tatum's cop and Foxx's President. Instead the film pauses to move its pieces around again. For no real reason. Moving Gyllenhall over here, the baddies over there, and a bunch of other people (various heads of the Pentagon) over yonder. During which time the principals, Tatum and Foxx, sit in an elevator shaft doing nothing. No bickering, no arguing. Instead they just repeat what they see, just in case the audience can't work out what's passing before their eyes. The dynamic between Tatum and Foxx is non-existent. There's the occasional one liner, and a three stooges-type exchange when Foxx knocks Tatum over the head with a rocket launcher, but it doesn't add up to much in a film who's concept is good for about 80-minutes of screen time, but somehow goes on for 131-minutes. (You'll feel each and every one of them.)
I knew the film was going to be stupid, and I was ready to embrace that, but it actually needed to be stupider still. Too often it's trying to play it straight, aspiring to the lofty heights of Die Hard. Instead it should have revelled in its innate absurdity and taken a note out of Crank (or most any film with Jason Statham). Two decades back it would have been considered passable fare; it would sit neatly alongside the many thoroughly mediocre action films of the mid 90s (Executive Decision, Air Force One, Speed 2, The Siege, Mercury Rising, and many many others). Its villains certainly come from that era - one has the title 'King of Hackers' and couldn't look more out of place in this decade. (He can hack the Pentagon in minutes, with barely the press of a button, but he's somehow baffled by sprinklers. A plot point that also feels like it belongs in a different era.)
I'm sure Emmerich has the capacity to make a stupider film, since he already has (2012), what I'm less sure of is whether he can still make a fun one.
Overall: 3/10
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