White House Down (2013)

"The President wants to do the thing." (Carol Finnerty)

Have you ever thought you were watching one James Bond and realized that in fact you were watching a different James Bond?  That's about the best way that I could describe White House Down.  I've never been one to expect too much from the Action movie genre.  The acting can be subpar. -In fact, sub-par acting is often a benefit.   The story can be ludicrous.  The stunts can defy logic.  All of that is ok, as long as audience buy-in and suspension of disbelief never waivers.

White House Down lost my belief in 5 minutes.  James Woods always betrays someone in a movie. Everyone saw his telegraphed coup coming a mile away.  The para military men storm the White House with precision in about 5 minutes, but all of their bullets and RPGs can't hit the extremely broad chest of Channing Tatum.  All of the allusions were telegraphed like a Hollywood Hulk Hogan eye poke.  The bullet proof car, the flag waving, the thing. It went on and on.

However, the one thing that bugged me the most about White House Down was the constant and over-arching feeling that I had seen this movie before.  Every scene was just on the verge of screaming at me that it was stolen from a different and better action movie.  Imagine if you took a bunch of Steven Segal movies, the first 3 Die Hards, and a Wesley Snipes film and broke them apart scene by scene.  Then took the segmented scenes that made sense and spliced them back together into one amalgamated movie like that 10 second Star Wars fan project.  Finally, reshot the conglomerated film with your own cast on location for continuity.  Thus was White House Down made.

Oh and does anyone else think that there must be a permanent fake White House set somewhere in California that gets rented out per project.  It would be weird if every White House centric movie was in fact filmed in a brand new set every time.  Or perhaps this is a very modest business idea?

Ratings:

Presidents:  Skip it

D.C. Urbanites:  See it.  (Fighter jets in Dupont Circle?)

Feel like you should always have your shirt off when being shot at?:  See it

History Buffs: -actually, See it

Editors and Script writers: Skip it

On a scale of Def Con to Mos Def, I give White House Down 2.6 out of 5 stars.