White House Down (2013)
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Critics Consensus: White House Down benefits from the leads' chemistry, but director Roland Emmerich smothers the film with narrative clichés and choppily edited action.
Critics Consensus: White House Down benefits from the leads' chemistry, but director Roland Emmerich smothers the film with narrative clichés and choppily edited action.
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Movie Info
The White House is under siege in this action thriller from Independence Day director Roland Emmerich and The Amazing Spider-Man's writer James Vanderbilt in this Sony Pictures release. Channing Tatum stars. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi- Rating:
- PG-13 (for prolonged sequences of action and violence including intense gunfire and explosions, some language and a brief sexual image)
- Genre:
- Drama , Action & Adventure
- Directed By:
- Roland Emmerich
- Written By:
- James Vanderbilt
- In Theaters:
- Jun 28, 2013 Wide
- On DVD:
- Nov 5, 2013
- US Box Office:
- $73.1M
Cast
-
Channing Tatum
as Cale -
Jamie Foxx
as President Sawyer -
Maggie Gyllenhaal
as Finnerty -
Jason Clarke
as Stenz -
Richard Jenkins
as Raphelson -
Joey King
as Emily
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Critic Reviews for White House Down
All Critics (182) | Top Critics (43) | Fresh (91) | Rotten (90) | DVD (2)
White House Down is terrible. The acting? The effects? The villainy? All bad. The politics are a hot mess.
If all you're after is a pair of mismatched heroes wisecracking their way through a series of explosive, well-mounted set pieces, look no further.
It's Independence Day without the aliens and a president partial to Air Jordans.
The main flaw of White House Down is that it overstays its welcome, thanks in large part to a silly climax that seems to unfold in three laborious acts.
Essentially a louder, sillier version of Die Hard, with John Cale standing in for John McClane, a precocious daughter standing in for the plucky wife, and, alas, no one even much trying to stand in for Alan Rickman's deliciously wicked Hans Gruber.
It follows the Emmerich template: a spectacle-tinged, compelling setup; a dumb, disappointing midsection; and a cheese-topped denouement that veers so close to self-parody that one is tempted to call it funny.
Instant blockbuster camp.
This isn't a Guilty Pleasure, just a pleasure.
While fun in a harmless, artificial sort of way -- like Pop Rocks or costume jewelry -- White House Down is little more than Die Hard at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Ridiculous as it is both thematically and action-wise, the film is a ton of fun, and much better than most of what director Roland Emmerich has put out there over the years
Directed by Roland Emmerich (the guy who blew up the White House once before in Independence Day), it has that old-school buddy action vibe, but it falls just short of really working.
"Dumb" doesn't do it justice
While the film is exactly as silly as Olympus Has Fallen...it admittedly has a lot more fun with the cheeseball, post-9/11 patriotism that underlies the lark. That's the real saving grace for a film that is essentially a carbon of a carbon of a carbon.
Where Emmerich consistently distinguishes himself from obvious contemporaries like Transformers maestro Michael Bay is that, in his films, patriotism never equals prejudice.
This is a ludicrously contrived thriller that's also a guilty pleasure because the actors refuse to take things seriously.
Characters behave in a manner that often doesn't make sense. It's like watching a bad horror movie where the victims act as if they want to get caught.
At least has the good grace to laugh at itself as it rolls out the dingbat-daft action-movie cliches.
All credit to this hack: he's once again made sleeping well a real possibility, making the plausible implausible.
It is appallingly funny in a way that few parodies ever manage. But it is undeniably exciting.
Emmerich has a bigger budget to play with than Olympus Has Fallen director Antoine Fuqua yet fails to get more bangs for his bucks or outdo his predecessor's guilty-pleasure thrills. With Olympus it was the effects that were cheesy; here it's the script.
One of the most violent films I've seen from a female cinematographer. But Anna Foerster adds lots of lovely, brilliantly-lit visual touches and handles the Die Hard-style action as well as any man.
Whether or not you enjoy this film depends entirely on whether you judge it to be po-faced or parody. If you believe it's the former, you'll probably hate it. If you believe it's the latter, you'll have an absolute blast.
Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) can do these films in his sleep; which may be why they sometimes emerge as nightmares of crazed, florid hokum.
Tatum is very appealing, Foxx makes for a personable Obama-esque fantasy President and the strong supporting cast includes the estimable James Woods, Richard Jenkins and Maggie Gyllenhaal.
Real thrills - dependent on real, believable jeopardy - are not on offer: just cheerfully absurd spectacle and a little bit of humour.
An expensive blockbuster chuckle that doesn't last.
Audience Reviews for White House Down
Typical, you wait around for ages for a stupid over the top action mess about the White House being taken over by two dimensional terrorists and then two come along at once. The scene in which Roland Emmerich name checks one of his own films was enough to make me want to throw things at the screen, the fact that he kept having to remind us that the president was Black was something else. I'm surprised he didn't have him save the world while incorporating a magnificent basket ball slam-dunk (he was wearing the right footwear after all!). Some have pointed out that this isn't technically a disaster movie, I have to disagree, it's one of the biggest disasters of 2013.
http://cinephilecrocodile.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/white-house-down-dir-roland-emmerich.html
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
Compared to what Gerard Butler and Aaron Eckhart offered in 'Olympus Has Fallen', what Roland Emmerich, Channing Tatum, and Jamie Foxx try to offer in this movie is a total flop.. Unlike the battle between 'No Strings Attached' vs 'Friends with Benefit' before that we can call it a tie, 'Olympus Has Fallen' vs 'White House Down' is a comfortable win for Butler's side undoubtedly..
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Super Reviewer
Could be one of the stupidest, most nonsensical movies ever made. Usually competent actors ham it up to no avail.
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Super Reviewer
White House Down Quotes
- Donnie the Guide:
- You heard the man. Tours over!
- Raphelson:
- Our country is stronger than one house.
- President Sawyer:
- Where are you going?
- Cale:
- I'm going back in there to save my daughter!
- President Sawyer:
- Then I'm coming with you.
- Cale:
- No. You have to go out there and be president.
- President Sawyer:
- With all the power of my office as president of the United States, I say fuck you.
- Stenz:
- Your little bitch said I was going to jail!
- Cale:
- You're not going to jail you little bitch!
- President Sawyer:
- Whatever you do, I do.
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