There’s nothing saying that every movie has to be particularly intelligent; while intricate stories, good acting, and other such features are typically considered essential to a good movie, they are by no means required; films like Rocky or the original Star Wars are certainly indicative of that much. Lack of intelligence only hurts a film if the movie is actively trying to be intelligent; such is unfortunately the case with James Vanderbilt’s recent action blockbuster, White House Down.
White House Down, which hit theaters just this past summer, seems on the surface to be a harmless action flick. Forced to share its limelight with Olympus has Fallen, a film released at almost the exact same time which had a very similar premise, style, and atmosphere, the two films flew (comparatively) under the public radar, likely due to their similarities cancelling out the hype for the other, and thus halving their potential success.
Both films have a cast comprised of seasoned actors, share similar settings, follow much the same narrative structure, and look largely identical in most ways that matter. If they are so similar, why, then, is White House Down more worthy of criticism? The answer lies solely with its presentation.
The film opens on John Cale, played by Channing Tatum (Dear John, G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra), a police officer in the Capitol who hopes to join the secret service. Politically, D.C. is in a state of unrest, because President Sawyer (Jamie Foxx) has been pushing for a peace treaty that would essentially end all foreign involvement in the Middle East. However, this agenda lights the less-than-metaphorical fires of conflict, inspiring a group of radicals to bomb portions of the White House, take civilians hostage, and attempt to force Sawyer to authorize a nuclear strike on Iran. As a result, it falls to Cale to fight off the terrorists, rescue his kidnapped daughter, save the President, and stop nuclear war.
On the surface, White House Down seems like it should be a perfectly fine action film. It has a threatening, if cheesy premise, guns, hostages, explosions, and loose-cannon cops fighting off legions of incompetent terrorist fodder. And, admittedly, if the film succeeds in one area, it is in its action sequences. Most of the fights in the movie are well choreographed, and each one feels suitably suspenseful. While the stakes rarely feel high (after all, no one honestly expects the protagonist to be taken down by unnamed terrorist number 5, no matter how hard the film tries to fool you), its easy to get engrossed by the sheer over-the-top nature of the fighting.
It’s fast paced, it’s tense, and it does its job well. Granted, the action scenes do suffer a bit from poor cinematography: the camera has a tendency to hold itself a little too close to the characters, maybe in an attempt to make the scenes feel more personal; however, this has the side effect of making the action difficult to make out. This isn’t helped by the “shaky camera” effect that the director makes liberal use of throughout the film; while not a big problem, I do wish the action scenes were filmed better, so as to do them proper justice.
However, once we move past the action scenes, which carry themselves solely on adrenaline, the cracks in White House Down really begin to show, suffering from most of the issues that typically plague action films. The acting, for instance, as may be predicted, is not particularly well done; line readings are flat, and characters rarely ever properly emote; while this is typically done in order to make the characters seem stronger, it has the side effect of making them seem bored, as well. While not entirely the fault of the actors (it is apparent that they were given very little to work with, character-wise), they certainly don’t bring anything new to the table.
As it stands, Cale is the stereotypical action movie hero; Sawyer is the stereotypical unpopular leader with a heart of gold. The best performance is given by James Woods, who plays one of the leading terrorists in the film. While he may play a stereotypical revenge-quest villain, it’s clear that he’s having a lot of fun with the role, and acts so hilariously over the top that it’s impossible to not laugh at times. That doesn’t make the acting good, or the character any less stereotypical, but it does make him a bit more fun to watch. That said, it is by-and-large difficult to care about any of the characters in this film; and, as the film is, at its core, a hostage-rescue film, caring at least a bit about the characters should be somewhat of a priority.
But then, realism and connecting emotionally with characters has always been a common problem with action movies. Even among iconic films in the genre like Rambo or Die Hard, the characters and plot have always been secondary to the fight scenes: gunfights, fistfights, explosions fueled solely by the power of testosterone, these are the reasons people want to see action films. Characters are typically just a reason to move from one action scene to the next, and nothing more. So who cares if the characters and plot are lacking?
Well, here’s the issue: this film clearly wants the plot and characters to matter.
Action films have proven, time and again, that they are capable of deep storytelling and good characterization. For every Die Hard, for instance, there’s a Terminator 2, breaking the action-movie mold. The film clearly wants to be that deep action film. It dedicates a lot of time to setting up who our characters are, and why we should care about them.
The film tries to go into detail about Cale and his relationship with his daughter; it tries to build emotional conflict in the president about whether or not he’s even in the right; each of the terrorists have their own quirks and backstories, and some of their motivations are surprisingly strong.
Even more surprising is the thematic content of the film; the movie is one giant action blowout, ripe with explosions, death, firefights, explosions, yet the whole movie is so heavily rooted in promoting peace; the whole conflict of the film arises over whether or not the president should try to end war in the Middle East; despite this, both the president and Cale willingly and actively engage in what is essentially all-out war, seemingly defeating the purpose that they’re fighting for. How can one honestly advocate peace in a film whose sole purpose is to have the protagonist cause explosion after explosion?
This contradiction should, theoretically, open the doors for all sorts of interesting storytelling possibilities, addressing not just how and why they fight, but the sort of things that are worth fighting for, among any number of other interesting questions.
Unfortunately, the movie is too clever, and fails to realize just how clever it really is. None of these issues are ever touched upon; backstories come off as nothing but contrivances meant to force characters into battle position. Characters exist solely to bounce from one action scene to the next. And despite so many intricate thematic possibilities, the film refuses to so much as touch any of them; instead, Vanderbilt squanders the opportunity in order to shoehorn in his own political agenda through a less-than-subtle mouthpiece character.
The end result is a film that brings nothing new to the table.
Its plot is stereotypical, its characters are stereotypical, its action, while good, is stereotypical, and any attempt to break new ground is squandered away and wasted on poorly-conveyed political preaching that, unfortunately, won’t do much to convince or invest audiences. Somewhere amid all this garbage is a good film, and it makes me sad that I have to dig to try and find it.
Overall Rating: 2/5
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