SYNOPSIS: In Columbia Pictures’ White House Down, Capitol Policeman John Cale (Channing Tatum) has just been denied his dream job with the Secret Service of protecting President James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx). Not wanting to let down his little girl with the news, he takes her on a tour of the White House, when the complex is overtaken by a heavily armed paramilitary group. 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. 

REVIEW: Ok, so we know by now that director Roland Emmerich, notoriously annihilated the White House and most of Washington D.C., in Independence Day, the 1996 blockbuster flick about an extraterrestrial invasion. And most of us are aware that there have been lots of movies that portrayed just that, with a good example being one of Hollywood’s latest releases called Olympus has fallen (2013). So naturally, with Emmerich in the director’s chair here, one might think that White House Down is just more of the same; however, one would be quite mistaken. With the aid of writer James Vanderbilt (The Amazing Spider-Man, 2012) White House Down turns out to be an action packed, wise-cracking one hundred and thirty-two minutes of pure adrenaline fueled entertainment that whizzes by seemingly in no time. The sequences are so intense that one doesn’t have time to be bored or disenchanted by a plot that seems to have been repeated several times over, in Hollywood.

Channing Tatum (G.I. Joe: Retaliation, 2013), Jaime Foxx (Django Unchained, 2012), James Woods (Officer Down, 2012) and Maggie Gyllenhaal (Won't Back Down, 2012) all contributed equally to the success of this rollercoaster ride of a movie. Their roles seemed ideally adapted for them and I cannot imagine anyone else substituting. As for the acting, Tatum has now shown us that he can certainly hold his own in the action genre. And with a slew of experience under his belt now, he proves to be quite a sturdy action hero. I was quite apprehensive with the idea of Foxx playing the role of President of the United States, however, as the movie shifted gears, repositioned and morphed in to a “Die Hard with a Vengeance” type of movie, it became quite apparent that Foxx too can stretch his roles and rise to the challenge. He simply goes with the flow, doing a sly take on the current occupant of the White House, without bringing the hardboiled characteristics that we know he’s so capable of. 

Overall, I’ll give White House Down four out of five stars for great casting placement, situational believability and non-stop action-packed fun for all. Furthermore, I think it will be hard for any other movie to come along this summer and top the combination of action, comedy and patriotic virtue. It is well worth the visit to the theaters for this one, though I would skip any 3D showings out there.

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