We get real actors like Maggie Gyllenhaal, Richard Jenkins, James Woods, Jason Clarke, and Lance Reddick supporting our heroic duo. Be it the genuinely warm father/son relationships of Jeff Goldblum and Judd Hirsch in Independence Day and Mel Gibson and Heath Ledger in The Patriot or the gripping and engaging moral debates between Oliver Platt and Chiwetel Ejiofor in 2012, Emerich's best films know that all the disaster-porn or action blow-outs don't mean a thing if we don't like the players involved.Īnd pretty much everyone in White House Down is genuinely likable, except of course for the bad guys where appropriate. Emmerich's better films are unapologetically broad and often a bit melodramatic, but they are also relentlessly pleasurable, putting as much focus on the people as the FX-infused mayhem. Roland Emerich's White House Down reminds us what separates his work from the many pretenders.
#WHITE HOUSE DOWN REVIEW FULL#
It's big-scale, full of fun dialogue and genuinely entertaining character turns by a crop of terrific performers. White House Down is a pretty solid action-adventure picture that delivers exactly what it promises and does so with high style. If Olympus Has Fallen, with its lower budget and jaw-dropping violence, resembled the kind of straight-to-VHS Die Hard knock-offs that flourished on video and on HBO/Showtime during the mid-90's (think No Contest), then White House Down is a throwback to the genuine article. There has been a token comeback of sorts over the last few years to these kinds of films, evidenced by the fact that this is in-fact the second Die Hard in the White House film just this year. You had your Jurassic Park, Twister and Godzilla, but also The Fugitive, The Rock, and Lethal Weapon 4. Nowadays, it's genuinely thrilling when we get a film like this or Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol or yes, Fast & Furious 6. During the 1990's, the would-be 'big' films of a given year were basically big-budget real-world action pictures.
There was a time when a film like White House Down would have been one of the very biggest would-be tent-poles of the summer. It's always tough to predict the box office fortunes of original/non-franchise pictures, but I'd be a little surprised if this isn't a potent and leggy worldwide hit. I've written a lot about 'old school movies', and this is a prime example, a big-scale adventure picture firmly set on planet Earth with strong appeal to general moviegoers who don't care for fantasy mixed in with their action. The film's budget is $150 million, meaning that Sony is hoping for a $350-$400 million minimum worldwide take, which is quite possible considering Emmerich's overseas strength and domestic muscle (expect an overseas gross 2-3 times the domestic one). Channing Tatum is in his element here, and this will only make his stock rise that much faster and higher. As for our two stars, Jamie Foxx is awfully close to becoming the next Denzel Washington/Will Smith, an actor of color who can do big business domestically and overseas as well. The two supporting actors with the most to gain are Joey King as Tatum's young daughter and Nicolas Wright, whose colorful tour guide may be an audience favorite. Roland Emmerich has little to prove at this point.
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