White House Down (2013) - Roland Emmerich

Cale, a Capitol police officer, is a good man whose past mistakes seem to always catch up to him.  His latest being that he missed his daughter's talent show.  His daughter is very passionate about politics, and in an effort to make it up to her, Cale uses a connection he has to get him and his daughter into the White House.  While on their tour, the White House comes under siege by a group of heavily armed paramilitary troopers.  With the President and his own daughter in danger, Cale must jump into action to protect them both.  Roland Emmerich's White House Down is the lastest film by the director that is just as silly and stupid as it's fun.  Emmerich's propensity for heavy-handed storytelling is well in tact, with pretty much every twist and turn of the narrative being recognizable far before it's revealed.  Obviously this film will be compared to Olympus Has Fallen, but the two film's are basically bigger and sillier Die Hard films set in the White House anyway.  The actual takeover the White House feels much more realistic in White House Down than Olympus Has Fallen, but from there it becomes a ridiculously silly endeavor that makes morals far too black and white.  Personally, I find it tiresome how every film like this has every government agency bickering among themselves trying to compare whose dick is bigger.  All of these complaints shouldn't be surprising given that Roland Emmerich is involved, but where White House Down succeeds best is in the comedic elements.  Jamie Foxx and Channing Tatum have good chemistry between the two of them and White House Down has a surprising amount of comedy.  The film is fun because of this, making it a lot easier to ignore the overall silliness of the movie.  One thing that I also realized while watching White House Down is that Roland Emmerich really isn't very good at directing action, with much of the gun play and fist fights being choppy and hard to follow.  I guess he is just good as showing bombastic destruction and White House Down has some of that too.  Roland Emmerich's White House Down is another loud and dumb film from the director but luckily Channing and Foxx's chemistry at least make the film fun-ish.
5/10

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