Review: White House Down (2013)

Cast: Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx, Maggie Gyllenhaal
Director: Roland Emmerich
Country: USA
Genre: Action | Drama | Thriller
Official Trailer: Here

Editor’s Notes: White House Down is now playing. Check your local listings for showtimes. For an additional perspective on the film, read Derek’s review.

I actually hate myself a little for saying this, but White House Down (2013) wasn’t all that bad of a movie.  The film is surprisingly entertaining and even has a fantastic sense of humor about itself (director Roland Emerich even calls attention to one of his previous films, Independence Day during a tour of the White House).

The story is that Cale (Channing Tatum) is a Capitol police officer on Speaker of the House Raphelson (Richard Jenkins)’s security detail.  He’s divorced with an 11 year old daughter, Emily (Joey King).  She’s deeply into politics and follows the news religiously.  Cale scores two White House passes (and an interview for the Secret Service) and takes her along.  He’s interviewed (unfortunately) by an old acquaintance, Finnerty (Maggie Gyllenhaal), and does not get the job.  On their way out, they get pulled into a tour, which Emily wanted to go on anyway.  While on the tour, President Sawyer (Jamie Foxx) stops by and Emily gets him to answer a question for her YouTube page.

I actually hate myself a little for saying this, but White House Down (2013) wasn’t all that bad of a movie.  The film is surprisingly entertaining and even has a fantastic sense of humor about itself

While upstairs on the tour, Emily has to use the restroom, which is downstairs thereby separating her from her father.  That is of course when the terrorist group decides to strike.  I was actually disheartened by how they are more or less introduced because they are posing as sound guys fixing up the audio in the Presidential screening room and they’re screening Lawrence of Arabia for their test.  I just don’t like that great film being associated with a) terrorists, foreign or domestic or b) a movie of much lesser quality such as this one.

Anyway, a guy blows up the Capital dome down the street and while that’s happening, the other guys start shooting Secret Service agents in the White House.  The President is moved to the secret vault, then it’s revealed that the head of the Secret Service, Walker (James Woods) is in charge of the whole thing.  And it’s his last week on the job.  And his son was killed in a black ops mission in Iran.  And he hates this president.  His gang, we find out, is cherry-picked from the list of people who hate President Sawyer, from white-power hate groups to disavowed CIA operatives (Stenz, played by Jason Clarke).

Meanwhile, Finnerty is extracting the Speaker from the Capital and going to a secured location and the Vice President (Michael Murphy) is shot into near orbit on Air Force One (though really he would have been on Air Force Two because the only time it’s Air Force One is when the President is on board).  They don’t know if Sawyer is alive or dead so they just act like he’s dead.

With this going on, Cale goes looking for his daughter and stumbles upon a terrorist and kills one, taking his walkie-talkie.  He discovers that they will be meeting in the vault where Walker has the President.  Cale, now with a machine gun, is near the library trying to talk himself out of going and intervening and failing to do so.  He extracts Sawyer and proceeds to lead the terrorists on a cat-and-mouse hunt through the White House all the while fussing about his daughter but not doing anything about it.

White House Down re-instills the sense of people trying to diffuse an incredibly difficult situation with a quick line, never enough to take your mind off the tense situation but enough to ground out.

The plot goes on and on (and on and on) and plays out in a fairly predictable pattern.  It is, after all, a Roland Emerich film, despite it being written by Zodiac (2007) scribe James Vanderbilt.  While the action and plot points are predictable, what wasn’t was the comedy.  The film was disarmingly humorous and that lent quite a bit to its likeability.  Add to that the more than capable cast, and this turned out to be surprisingly enjoyable.  Like Independence Day (1996) before it, White House Down owes much of its quality to the charm and personality of the characters.  None are particularly well drawn, but they are people we can get behind or root against.

Emerich has a way of making the dumbest movie involving.  I admit I skipped out on most of his work, including 2012 (2009), and The Day After Tomorrow (2004), but he did do Stargate (1994) which was fairly good.  The exception to my statement (that I’ve seen) is Godzilla (1998) that no one could have made involving, not Spielberg, not Scorsese, no one.  Emerich has made a career off of property damage movies and despite everyone hating them they make money and he gets to make another film where beloved national landmarks are eradicated.  What’s been missing from them since Independence Day was the humor.  White House Down re-instills the sense of people trying to diffuse an incredibly difficult situation with a quick line, never enough to take your mind off the tense situation but enough to ground out.

White House Down also does something that some people in political spheres will crow about.  It takes the current climate of animosity towards the current U.S. President and follows it through to its logical conclusion (I realize using the word ‘logic’ in conjunction with a Roland Emeric film will hurt some people, but hear me out).  While the situation and ending are completely illogical and unrealistic, the premise and the backgrounds of the domestic terrorists aren’t that far-fetched.  Nor is the ultimate bad guy, which I won’t name here but it won’t take you long to figure out who it is and why it sort of works if you don’t think about it for a long amount of time.

White House Down ended up being entertaining and fun, for what it is.  It’s not a thinker, that’s for sure, but it is a decent popcorn flick that raises way more moral implications than it can ever hope to deal with and ties them up way more simply than could be possible, but for a shoot ‘em up flick, it’s not bad.

• Bio
• Latest Posts

Doug Heller

Sr. Staff Film Critic

I believe film occupies a rare place as art, entertainment, historical records and pure joy. I love all films, good and bad, from every time period with an affinity to Classical Hollywood in general, but samurai, sci-fi and noir specifically. My BA is in Film Studies from Pitt and my MA is in Education. My goal is to be able to ignite a love of film in others that is similar to my own.

Latest posts by Doug Heller (see all)

• Get Off My Plane: Presidents in Danger - June 30, 2013
• Review: Copperhead (2013) - June 29, 2013
• Review: White House Down (2013) - June 29, 2013