White House Down
Roland Emmerich
The story: Rejected by the Secret Service in his application for his dream job of protecting the President, Capitol cop John Cale (Channing Tatum) is on a tour of the White House with his daughter Emily (Joey King) when a paramilitary group led by Emil Stenz (Jason Clarke) storms the seat of power. It is up to Cale to save President James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx).

The White House really needs to beef up its security.
Ever since aliens took a potshot at it in Independence Day (1996), it has been vulnerable to attack in way too many movies – the most recent attempt being in Olympus Has Fallen (2013) in April.
As the latest entry in the presidential-digs- under-threat subgenre, White House Down is perfectly serviceable summer fare with little interest in reinventing the wheel.
The set-up takes a good half-hour though and you have to sit through cheesy, jingoistic lines such as “Don’t we have the best job in the world?” from the mouth of a presidential aide.
The president himself is a saintly fellow who is dignified and idealistic, and director-producer Roland Emmerich’s shorthand for that is: Put a pair of glasses on Jamie Foxx (below) (Ray, 2004).
Once all that is out of the way, the well-paced action sequences finally kick in.
Emmerich has previously wreaked destruction on a global scale in disaster epics such as The Day After Tomorrow (2004), 2012 (2009) and, yes, Independence Day. He has no problems doing the same within the narrower confines of a few buildings here.
He merrily blows up and tears down iconic symbols of power and a spectacular explosion at the United States Capitol Building signals that the mayhem is underway at last.
As hero John Cale, Channing Tatum displays two key characteristics – an agile physicality and an imperviousness to bullets, which he shares with all action stars.
Like Nicolas Cage’s career path after Leaving Las Vegas (1995), once he proved that he could act in Magic Mike (2012), it turns out that what Tatum really wants to be is a shoot-’em-up hero with back-to-back turns in G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013) and here.
For a while, it seems as though Foxx, who is no slob physique-wise, is going to bust out of being presidential and pair up with Tatum in an action buddy flick. Emmerich sure teases us with that possibility when Foxx gets rid of his leather shoes for sneakers and even handles a weapon, but it does not quite happen.
It could have been fun to have the President going all-out and mowing down villains but then again, avoiding the buddy route cliche was probably the smarter move.
What he does instead is frustrate viewers with an ineffective secret service agent played by Maggie Gyllenhaal and a helpless and scared little girl, Emily, played by Joey King.
It would have been nice to have them taking a more active and heroic stance rather than floundering over the phone or frozen into inaction by fear. But I guess we will have to wait for Kick-Ass 2 for our fix for kick-ass female action.
(ST)