Seemingly every man who goes against all odds to single-handedly take down an entire building of baddies has a charming black friend by his side for help and a villain whose charisma is practically oozing off the screen. It sounds as if I'm talking about White House Down, the new film by iconic action director Roland Emmerich, but I am not. I'm actually referring to the cinematic masterpiece that is Die Hard.
The comparisons for the two action films are endless no doubt, as many who see the two films will attest to. But while 1998's Die Hard would come to define the very conventions and clichés of the genre, White House Down simply revels in it, somehow feeling like the most low key Emmerich film to date (excluding the regretfully under seen Anonymous).
Emmerich's film stars Channing Tatum as a policeman who finds himself inside the White House with his daughter when the building is taken over by a heavily armed paramilitary group. With the government spinning out of control and in a state of absolute chaos, it is up to one man to save his daughter, the president, and his country from sure annihilation.
Emmerich's take on the destruction of the White House far exceeds that of previously released Olympus Has Fallen. While the two broach similar subject matters, the latter has none of the raucous fun that has become a staple in the director's action films. Visually White House Down delivers all of the glitz and glamour, even if you must sort through some of the rubble in order to find it.
White House Down relies heavily on both Tatum and Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx (President James Sawyer). Foxx goes against the grain as a more hip Commander-in-Chief, and the film garners a more modern flair as a result. Fortunately for fans, the duo shares the screen well, feeding off one another's energy and giving the film levity where it could have otherwise drowned in its own preachy politics and cautionary tales. The plotting is absurd to say the least; almost all of the carnage is a result of an understandably bereaved father, but a third act twist takes some of the fun away and leads to a more generic ending than I had been hoping for.
If nothing else, White House Down proves that Tatum possess a strong degree of talent. He fits the action hero role to near perfection, stretching his muscles to give audiences exactly what they have paid to see: cheesy action adventure that is just tame enough to warrant the monetarily friendly PG-13 rating. The film is nothing more and thankfully nothing less.
