The ‘Master of Disaster’, Roland Emmerich is back with this flick where the White House is the center of all carnage and mishaps. An armed group infiltrates the White House and takes it down completely. There are several hostages taken, and the situation is one of grave danger to the entire nation. There is obviously an ‘inside link’ from within the house to this group. A young cop, John Cale plays the hero and singlehandedly tries to save the President’s life and prevent a large scale nuclear disaster.
Language:
English
Running Time:
131 mins
Rating:
PG-13
Release date:
28 June 2013
Directed by:
Roland Emmerich
Produced by:
Roland Emmerich
Bradley J. Fischer
Harald Kloser
James Vanderbilt
Larry Franco
Laeta Kalogridis
Written by:
James Vanderbilt
Starring:
Channing Tatum
Jamie Foxx
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Jason Clarke
Richard Jenkins
James Woods
Music by:
Harald Kloser
Thomas Wanker
Shot by:
Anna Foerster
Editing by:
Adam Wolfe
Distributed by:
Columbia Pictures

What’s Hot

  • The action set pieces in the movie are of the highest order with top notch visual effects. But it is disaster all around like other Roland Emmerich flicks. He just loves bombs, blasts, guns and blowing up everything in the vicinity
  • The director has tried to show us the ‘man’ behind the President and how he too loves his family and has his likes and dislikes, as any other normal man. This works to an extent.
  • The actors don’t have to do anything special as the movie is heavily driven by the action blocks, the visual effects and all the disaster scenes. Good work by the technical crew.
  • Channing Tatum shows his prowess at stunts and is agile and fit. Foxx gets to play President and the obvious similarities and traces of Obama are hard to ignore. His awkwardness while enacting physically strenuous scenes sits well on his ‘President’ status.

What’s Not

  • We have many government officials, bureaucrats, politicians etc. making their presence felt, and it becomes a mess, where procedure and hierarchy have to be followed.
  • It is far-fetched seeing the President and a young cop working hand in hand and having conversations like two college buddies.
  • Channing Tatum actually looks like the elder brother of his 11 year old daughter, played by Joey King. Bad casting.

Badges

Verdict

Verdict Stamp

White House Down is a movie that you can see once, purely for its visual effects and for its improbable situations.