On the Fourth Day of Die Hard, My True Love Gave to Me...

As has been documented in multiple places online, Hollywood has a habit of making “Twin Films”, two competing movies from separate studios that somehow have the same exact plot. Sometimes they’re really perfect twins, such as two different DraculaHe's the great undead fiend, the Prince of Darkness, the monster based on a real historical figure. He... is Dracula! films (Dracula and Nosferatu: The Vampyre in 1979), two different Carmen productions (1983/1984), or two different James BondThe world's most famous secret agent, James Bond has starred not only in dozens of books but also one of the most famous, and certainly the longest running, film franchises of all time. films (Octopussy and Never Say Never Again in 1983). Other times the twinning is more parallel in theme and tone, such as Gremlins and Ghoulies (1984/1985) for little monster films, or Deep Impact and Armageddon (1998) for asteroid/comet disaster films. 2013 was no exception with the powers at be at two different studios thinking “yeah, we should make a Die HardThe 1980s were famous for the bombastic action films released during the decade. Featuring big burly men fighting other big burly men, often with more guns, bombs, and explosions than appear in Michael Bay's wildest dreams, the action films of the decade were heavy on spectacle, short on realism. And then came a little film called Die Hard that flipped the entire action genre on its head.… but at the White House”.

One of these two films we’ve covered already, Olympus Has Fallen, which arrived first on the scene in March of that year. It was then followed by two sequels, and we went down that rabbit hole, following the adventures of hero Mike Banning as he has to save the President again and again in more improbable, and more idiotic, scenarios, through London Has Fallen and Angel Has Fallen. But now, with those out of the way, we can go back to 2013 and look at the other, less financially successful film to handle this topic: June 2013’s White House Down.

Now, while I note that it wasn’t as financially successful (making only $205.4 Mil against its bloated $150 Mil budget, certifying it as a Box Office flop), I legitimately think it’s the more enjoyable film. To be clear, both films, White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen are monumentally stupid movies. They’re based on improbable scenarios (that the President could even be taken hostage despite how many trained agents and military folks he has around him at all times) and take incredibly massive, stupid swings for plot and character in the process. But the difference is that while Olympus Has Fallen treats its subject matter straight faced and patriotically serious, White House Down at least knows it’s a stupid movie and it enjoys being able to wallow in its blockbuster idiocy. It’s more watchable and, frankly, more fun.

The film follows John Cale (Channing Tatum), a trained vet and current Capitol Police officer who has been working the protection detail for the Speaker of the House, Eli Raphelson (Richard Jenkins). John has a strained relationship with his daughter, Emily Cale (Joey King), and has missed a number of important life events with her. To make it up, he gets her a pass into the White House so she can see the place while he’s there for an interview to become a Secret Service agent. She loves politics, and especially loves the president, James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx), so this is the perfect way to get into her good graces.

The interview itself doesn’t go well, with Presidential Detail Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge Carol Wilkes-Finnerty (Maggie Gyllenhaal) already assuming he’s still the goof-off guy she remembered from college and ignoring most of his record afterwards. Still, while in the White House with his daughter, John decides to at least enjoy the day and take the grand tour of the place. Today was not a great day to attend the tour, though, as it’s also the day that terrorists, led by Secret Service Presidential Detail Special Agent-in-Charge Martin Walker (James Woods) and ex-Delta Force captain Emil Stenz (Jason Clarke) decide to take over the White House and take the President hostage. John is in the wrong place at the wrong time, which makes him the perfect guy to save the President and fight off some bad guys.

White House Down is unabashed in its influences. It cribs heavily from both Die Hard and three-quel Die Hard With a Vengeance. It has the down-on-his-luck cop just trying to patch things up with his family. It puts him at the wrong place and the wrong time, the only guy in a building surrounded with bad guys, fighting them all off with hope and quippy verbal sparring. And then it gives him a buddy to roam around with, two pals joking and fighting bad guys together. And it works because this exact formula worked so well in those other films, and this movie doesn’t deviate far.

Does it feel derivative? Maybe a bit. It does clearly know it’s stealing from Die Hard and its sequels and it doesn’t act shy about it. It just wants to get out there and have a good time. And it does so with bombast and humor. With a script by James Vanderbilt, who worked on Zodiac, The Amazing Spider-man, and Independence Day: Resurgence, and directed by Roland Emmerich, who seemingly has made every good, mediocre, and absolutely terrible disaster film of the last 30 years, White House Down is basic blockbuster cinema as Hollywood loves to make: big, silly, and incredibly stupid. And that’s why I enjoyed it.

When you watch this film you end up having to compare it to Olympus Has Fallen simply because the two films came out so close together. White House Down is a dumb movie, but somehow Olympus Has Fallen is dumber. Neither are intelligent by any stretch, but the difference is that Olympus Has Fallen thinks that it’s smart. It goes hard on patriotism and stoic perseverance. It doesn’t know how to have fun because it has to have a message. It’s pro-America, fuck yeah, and it expects you to buy into it. When, at the time, most people did.

Honestly, considering where America was at, White House Down really didn’t stand much of a chance. For many, even a little over a decade later, 9/11 still felt fresh in their minds and in a battle between two White House films, one that treats the subject matter patriotically and the other that goes hard on having a silly, good time, people were gonna choose the patriotic one. Plus, this film coming out three months later and feeling very derivative not only of Die Hard but also of Olympus Has Fallen surely helped to sink it.

Which is a pity because this film is fun. For starters, the chemistry between Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx works really well. Tatum is having a blast playing an action star, doing what he can to seem like a normal, average joe in a tough situation even if “trained former soldier” is a lot less “every man” than John McClain’s beat cop from Die Hard. I like his pairing with Jamie Foxx and I think they carry the film well. I don’t especially buy Foxx as the President as his performance doesn’t feel especially “presidential”, but I do think he bounces nicely off Tatum, and that gives the film some legs.

The villains are maybe a little more sketchy. I appreciate that this film doesn’t just slap in some foreign terrorists, which helps to elude the jingoistic issues of its competition. The issue is that their plans, and their very characters, don’t really feel fleshed out enough. James Woods’s Martin Walker feels like he has a ton of tropes thrown on top of his character (a dead son, patriotic duty, a brain tumor) when none of that really helps to explain how a decorated Secret Service agent would go bad like this. He’s still more detailed than Jason Clarke’s Emil Stenz, who seems to be there to look tough and follow whatever plan is going on. Whatever his real goal is for their mission (supposedly it’s money but that doesn’t really hold water) we never really get a handle on it from the movie.

None of these flaws are enough to sink the film. This is just the kind of movie where you can shut your brain off and enjoy the quips and action for a couple of hours. It’s dumb, yes, and at times its plot almost becomes nonsensical. But is it bad? Well, okay, yes, but in a fun way. It’s a good bad film, which puts it head and shoulders over Olympus Has Fallen, which is just a bad bad movie. Of the two, if I’m gonna go back and watch either of these again, it’ll be White House Down, every time.