MOVIE: White House Down

White House Down: this is not a Bill Clinton biography.  Instead, it is Channing Tatum starring as a John McClane (Bruce Willis/Die Hard) character named John Cale who just happened to be visiting the White House on the day bad people decided to take over the building and launch WW III.  The headline for the Associated Press review that was published in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser was “silly fun” and this time the headline is accurate.  But amid the chaotic story is a political theme with some funny lines.  If Oliver Stone had made the TV series “24”, this might be what he would have come up with assuming he had a sense of humor.  The film is the work of German born director Roland Emmerich  and screenwriter James Vanderbilt, with a repeat of Emmerich’s White House burning idea from his Independence Day film.  For those of you who like doomsday political films, you will see analogies to a number of movies ranging from Dr. Stangelove to Rambo during this 131 minute anarchist film in which Tatum saves our President (Jamie Foxx) and Cale’s 11 year old daughter, Emily (Joey King).  There is a plot: President James Sawyer returns to the White House after making a deal with Iran to bring peace to the Middle East.  This angers the military industrial complex.  Cale, an Afghan veteran working as a Capital police officer, is at the White House interviewing for a job with the Secret Service.  The interviewer is a do-gooder liberal who just happens to be a former Cale flame (Maggie Gyllenhaal).  Later in the film, she has some lines that appear to be unintendedly funny.  Cale takes his daughter with him and following his interview, the two begin a tour of the White House.  This is when a group of right wing extremists launch their attack with assistance from the head of the Secret Service (James Woods) who is bitter  over the death of his son who was killed in a failed mission authorized by the President.  The script is topical and frequently ludicrous.  Emily asks the best question as to the underlying political event (pulling all troops out of the Middle East): how do you stop the violence between Shities and Sunnis by having the U.S. enter into a peace treaty with Iran?  Emily referenced Pakistan in her question but it exemplifies the political simplification of the film as well as the real underlying questions that our politicians address only with rhetoric instead of substance.  As for Foxx’s performance and character, there are many ways in which we are told to think “Barack Obama” beyond skin color; i.e., he has a wife and a teenage daughter, when he changes out of dress shoes he puts on basketball shoes, he chews Nicorette gum, etc.  Foxx isn’t asked to do much and he fully complies.  It is easy to make fun of this film but if you watch it, you will probably find yourself enjoying much of it as the first part has Cale as a divorced parent trying to do right with his daughter and the second half has over the top shoot outs that appear to be a common theme in today’s blockbusters.  You will not be bored - I was surprised by how many times I laughed.  Just wish I was sure the director intended his audience to laugh as often as I did.