Oval Offence
‘Wake me if civilization ends,” a sleepy U.S. President (Jamie Foxx) jokes to one of his aides in this year’s second White-House-in-peril drama. Given the number of times civilization has been ending onscreen of late, this sounds like someone recklessly tempting fate. Three months ago, Olympus Has
Fallen gave us nasty North Koreans (Rick Yune, etc.) attacking a president (Aaron Eckhart) and endangering a child until a Secret Service agent (Gerard Butler) saved the day. White
House Down puts Foxx in the Oval Office and makes Channing Tatum the hero.
Cosmetic changes, you might grumble, and you’d be right. But give credit to writer James Vanderbilt ( Zodiac) and director Roland Emmerich for finding a way to have Tatum fight a bad guy after having (A) lost his shirt in some sort of explosion that left him otherwise unharmed and (B) set off the White House sprinkler system. That’s planning!
The terrorists in this movie are also domestic rather than foreign, and what a grab-bag of baddies they are. Jason Clarke, who did such a good job keeping Uncle Sam safe in
Zero Dark Thirty, swings the other way in this one. How far? After shooting several armed guards, he pops a portrait of Washington. (Well, George did favour the right to bear arms.)
Kevin Rankin plays Carl Killick, helpfully described at one point as a “right-wing sociopath.” Jimmi Simpson is Skip Tyler, a computer hacker with a penchant for Beethoven. There’s also an inside man in the form of a Secret Service turncoat. Although given his evil nature, turncoat is too nice a term — he’s more like a turncoat and two turn-pairs-of-pants.
White House Down runs for more than two hours, so expect a quiet opening 30 minutes or so before all constitutional hell breaks loose. Tatum plays John McClane — sorry, John Cale — a Washington cop who wants to better serve his country by joining the Secret Service. We meet his adorable, weirdly politically savvy 11-year-old daughter Emily (Joey King), and learn that he used to go to
this is one of those rare films in which the director is also one of the villains
school with the Secret Service agent (Maggie Gyllenhaal) who interviews him for the job.
After the interview, John and Emily decide to join a tour of the White House, which is when things start blowing up and we recall that, oh yes, Emmerich is that guy who destroyed the White House in Independence Day (blasted by alien laser). And in 2012 (hit by aircraft carrier). And offscreen in The Day After Tomorrow (cold snap). And he reminds viewers that the British torched it in 1814. This is one of those rare films in which the director is also one of the villains.
He does his best in this one too, although the beleaguered citizens find ways to fight back. Who knew 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. was full of such makeshift, make-do weaponry? There’s even a scene in which the comic-relief tour guide (Nicolas Wright) manages to literally clock someone unconscious. And for the second White-House-siege-movie in a row, a bit of Lincoln memorabilia proves to be a lifesaver.
By now you may be realizing that White House Down is not exactly down with logic and military realism. Although if you thrill to the notion of a car chase on the White House grounds, and the commanderin-chief getting his hands dirty with a rocket launcher, you’ ll likely be willing to forgive a few of the film’s lapses in lucidity, including an ending and bad-guy revelation straight out of Scooby-Doo.
And the actors, at least, seem to know what they’re doing. Emmerich stocks his film with such old reliables as Michael Murphy (vicepresident Hammond), Richard Jenkins (Eli Raphelson, Speaker of the House), Lance Reddick (because all these movies have a black general) and James Woods as the head of the Secret Service.
Actually, it’s his character that sets all the mayhem in motion, by telling everyone he’s stepping down from the job after years of faithful service. Everyone knows that announcing retirement is like ringing a dinner bell for the terrorists/aliens/zombies to attack. Don’t these people watch movies? ΣΠ½