July 5, 2013
 
Sorry Channing Tatum, the film you were so excited to be in and that you executive produced was done about four months earlier (Olympus Has Fallen) and was so much better. But, you’re still getting three stars because I love action films and there were some twists in there that I didn’t see coming.
 
John Cale (Tatum) is a U.S. Capitol police officer assigned to Speaker of the House Eli Raphelson’s (Richard Jenkins) detail. He has a daughter, Emily (Joey King), who he is struggling to relate with after his tour in Afghanistan and a divorce. As a way to bond with her, he brings her along to the White House on a job interview to get on the president’s Secret Service detail. He hits a roadblock when a former college lover, now part of the president’s detail, Carol Finnerty (Maggie Gyllenhaal) tells him he lacks the experience they are looking for. On the way out, Emily wants to join a tour of the White House and Cale reluctantly agrees.
 
Meanwhile, President James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx) is stirring up controversy over a proposed peace treaty with allied nations to remove military forces from the Middle East. And the head of the president’s detail, Martin Walker (James Woods) is celebrating his retirement.
 
While the tour is going on, someone detonates a bomb in the Capitol Building. The city soon goes on lockdown with officials following protocol to keep the president and his staff safe. The vice president is put on Air Force One, the speaker of the house is brought to an underground bunker with Finnerity, and the president is escorted to the PEOC by Walker. Once down in the PEOC Walker turns on his men and tries to take the president hostage. Cale, who was looking for his daughter when the tour group was taken hostage, hears the commotion and rescues the president.
 
Cale and Sawyer then try to hide from the bad guys, all the while looking for Emily. Emily, however, is secretly recording the bad guys shooting Secret Service and loading weapons into the White House and then uploading the videos to YouTube. While it seemed smart at the time and did help the government identify who the bad guys were, the news released her picture and name so the bad guys find her and use her as leverage to get to the president.
 
There are crazy fight scenes, lots of explosions, a little bit of comedy and a few more plot twists. Of course the threat of a nuclear launch is thrown in for good measure, so the whole world is at risk of being destroyed.
 
I tried really hard not to compare the two films, but I just couldn’t. I thought White House Down was very sloppy. There were a lot of clues as to who the bad guys were, which I didn’t really care for. Their plan was also pretty sloppy and not as clean as in Olympus. I did like the little plot twists in White House Down though, as in Olympus there really was only one.
 
Tatum is not a very good actor. He was not that convincing as a father trying to find his daughter. A gun is put to her head several times and the only people who seem to care were the others being held hostage. Foxx tried to hard to portray an Obama-like character, which I found frustrating. Gyllenhaal was just OK. For a woman in her position, I felt the character could have been a little bit stronger, instead of just backing down on a few things.
 
It wasn’t a horrible film. In fact, I think that if you never saw Olympus Has Fallen, I think you’ll like this one. I guess just knowing that a very similar film was already executed so well made it difficult for me to really get immersed in the story.
 
Still see it in the theater for the big effects on the big screen.