White House Down

Roland Emmerich has intrigued us just about every summer for a number of years with big-budgeted, "2012","Stargate", "The Day After Tomorrow", and "Godzilla". Now he brings us "White House Down", and even though there are some similarities to "Olympus has Fallen" released earlier this year, the premise of the film is certainly different.

Capitol Policeman John Cale (Channing Tatum) has just been denied his dream job with the Secret Service of protecting President James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx) by one of its representatives, Carol Finnerty (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Not wanting to let his 11 year-old daughter, Emily (Joey King) down with the news, he takes her on a tour of the White House, when the complex is overtaken by a heavily armed paramilitary group headed up by Stenz (Jason Clarke). Now, with the nation's government falling into chaos and time running out, it's up to Cale to save the president, his daughter, and the country.

Others to round out the cast are Richard Jenkins as Speaker of the House Raphelson, James Woods as Secret Service Director, Walker, Nicolas Wright as Donnie the White House tour guide, Jimmi Simpson as Tyler, the computer hacker, Michael Murphy as Vice President Hammond, Rachelle Lefevre as Melanie, Lance Reddick as General Caulfield, Matt Craven as Agent Kellerman, Jake Weber as Agent Hope, and Peter Jacobson as Wallace.

This was intensely directed by Roland Emmerich ("Joey" '85, "Ghost Chase" '87, "Moon 44" '90, "Universal Soldier" '92, "Stargate" '94, "Independence Day" '96, "Godzilla" '98, "The Patriot" 2000, "The Day After Tomorrow" '04, "10,000 B.C." '08, "2012" '09, "Anonymous" '11, "Dark Horse" (TV movie) '12). After reading this resume, you can see that this project was a no brainer for this guy. It was equally written with grit by veteran James Vanderbilt ("Darkness Falls" '03, "Basic" '03, "The Rundown" '03, "Zodiac" '07, "The Losers" '10, "The Amazing Spider-Man" '12). You can see his next project, "RoboCop" in 2014. There were a couple of places that were a bit choppy, but certainly not enough from the one, two punch this script delivers.

All in all, this film is a winner--action, adrenaline, great visuals, intensity, even some comedy in just the right places. If you want to escape into something fun, thrilling, and a great roller coaster ride, this film delivers in spades.

Out of 4 Stars: 3.5                         Rated: PG-13                        131mins.