White House Down

White House Down - Dir. Roland Emmerich (2013)

Roland Emmerich sure gets a kick out of destroying Washington DC. He famously blew up the White House in Independence Day then wiped out the entire city with a massive tsunami in 2012. Emmerich isn't done with the nation's capital yet as he presents White House Down, the year's second film depicting the President's home under siege by terrorists.

Instead of Gerard Butler, we get Channing Tatum as John Cale, DC police officer and former Iraq War vet working security detail for the Speaker of the House (Richard Jenkins). He's a perennial underachiever and an absentee father. Cashing in a favor from his boss, Cale gets an interview to join the Secret Service and takes along his daughter, Emily (Joey King), hoping the young political junkie will be impressed by a VIP tour of the White House. Cale flops during the interview with Agent Carol Finnerty (Maggie Gyllenhaal), but gets a chance to prove himself when a team of mercenaries and white supremacists infiltrate the White House and capture President James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx). The baddies are led by Emil Stenz (Jason Clarke), an ex-Special Forces operative, with assistance from turncoat Martin Walker (James Woods).

While Olympus Has Fallen cribs far more from Die Hard, White House Down borrows only a few elements. Its protagonist not only has a similar name to John McClane, he spends most of the movie running around in a dirty tank top. One of the villains (Jimmi Simpson) listens to "Ode to Joy" as he hacks into NORAD. White House Down isn't as self-serious as Olympus either as Emmerich recognizes the inherent silliness of it all. This is a movie where even the nerdy tour guide gets a kill a bad guy and everything comes down to a nuclear weapon and an edge-of-your-seat countdown. Yes, White House Down goes down some incredibly stupid roads, such as a car chase on the south lawn or when the presidential limo just happens to have a rocket launcher hidden in the back seat. Also, what genius decided to mount a covert assault by sending attack choppers through the DC streets in plain sight of any traffic camera or cell phone? Screenwriter James Vanderbilt (Zodiac, The Amazing Spider-Man) practically draws a bright, bold arrow each time a plot element is introduced for a later payoff. Do you think President Sawyer's pocket watch from Abraham Lincoln will be important later on?

Tatum is a welcome antidote to the grim-faced Butler. He ably carries the film on his broad shoulders by playing the lovable lunkhead we've come to know in 21 Jump Street and Magic Mike. He's helped by the fun chemistry he shares with Jamie Foxx as the idealized Obama, who ushers in world peace, dismantles the military-industrial complex, and looks good in a pair of stylish Air Jordans. Jason Clarke doesn't get much to do as the ruthless Stenz though you can easily picture this being the eventual path of his character from Zero Dark Thirty. James Woods is at his slimy best though Emmerich wastes a stacked supporting cast that includes Maggie Gyllenhaal, Richard Jenkins, Lance Reddick, and Michael Murphy.

Drowning in effects-laden action and ham-fisted jingoism, White House Down is an unmistakable product of Emmerich's brand of summer shlock.

Rating: ** (*****)

2012

2012 - Dir. Roland Emmerich (2009)


Truly the most important things destroyed during 2012 are your brain cells.

Emmerich is the modern day Irwin Allen, the producer/director of The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, released during the 1970’s, the golden era for the disaster film. Allen’s name was synonymous with the genre which featured all-star casts and multiple storylines revolving around catastrophe. Emmerich has certainly topped Allen’s excess using the latest in special effects. He’s destroyed the world with aliens, giant lizards, and ice. Now, he’s done away with any kind of pretense at all. The world will end in 2012 and there’s no need to explain any further than that.

The film begins with geologist Dr. Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) discovering solar flares are causing the planet’s core to overheat which will lead to a series of unbelievable natural disasters. Usually, nobody listens to the scientist. Not this time. White House Chief of Staff Carl Anheuser (Oliver Platt) takes Helmsley’s reports seriously. Along with President Thomas Wilson (Danny Glover), they begin secretly constructing massive arks to safely house the world’s leaders as well as the most wealthy and influential people of the world. The average Joe? He’s pretty much screwed.

The everyman point of view here is from the perspective of Jackson Curtis (John Cusack), a former sci-fi writer now working as a limo driver. His boss is obnoxious Russian millionaire Yuri Karpov (Zlatko Buric) who just happens to be one of the few to buy a ticket to salvation. Curtis is divorced from wife Kate (Amanda Peet) who now lives with plastic surgeon Dr. Gordon Silberman (Thomas McCarthy). Dr. Silberman just happens to have worked on Karpov’s mistress Tamara (Beatrice Rosen). Yes, this is one of those movies where out of billions upon billions of people, a select few run into each other over and over again.

On a chance camping trip, Curtis runs into Dr. Helmsley as well as Charlie Frost, a nutty conspiracy theorist played by the equally nutty Woody Harrelson. Frost informs Curtis of the Mayan’s predictions about the end of the world in 2012. Clued in, Curtis quickly gets to his family to miraculously escape just as L.A. crumbles into the Pacific.

2012 is disaster porn at its finest. Emmerich leaves no stone unturned. He blew up the White House in Independence Day, Upping the ante, he destroys the White House again along with all of D.C., Vatican City, Yellowstone, and the Eiffel Tower. Two cute kids and a dog are tossed in to really tug at your heartstrings. Don’t bother to inject any type of logic or deeper thought into the proceedings. 2012 is pure, dumb shlock, jam packed with cheap thrills. Well, not so cheap for Sony who coughed up over $200 million for the budget. 2012’s overinflated budget and excessive 2 and a half hour runtime are indicative of the bloated blockbusters being churned out by Hollywood.

Rating: *