White House Down (2013): Roland Emmerich’s “Die Hard” in the White House wastes a talented cast on a ridiculous premise

Christian’s Grade: D

Die Hard (1988) is a classic, and everybody loves it. And it wasn’t the first movie about one good cop taking on a group of terrorists and overcoming the odds because he’s just that good, or maybe it was. Anyway, the response to Die Hard was so immensely positive there were bound to be more like it, knock-offs, if you will, that would try to recreate that magic. But most ended up being sad reflections of a great film that defined a genre. One such knock-off was White House Down(2013).

The plot is simple. John Cale (Channing Tatum) is a DC Capitol Policeman who wants to join the Secret Service. He’s dating someone who works in the White House, and she gets him an interview as a favor, but he doesn’t have the background one would expect for that job. So, he basically gets shot down immediately. His young daughter Emily (Joey King) loves government and politics, so he lets her tag along so she can see the inside of the White House. Cale and his daughter crash a tour group, and at this point, a small group of men, led by Jason Clarke (because any time you need an actor who can radiate a creepy and/or psychotic vibe whenever the camera is pointed at him you call Jason Clarke) magically infiltrate the White House and the Capitol Building as if they spend every day there. Then to really kick things off, they blow up the Capitol Building Rotunda as a distraction and take the White House tour group hostage. Director of Homeland Security Walker (James Woods) immediately moves to get President Sawyer (Jamie Foxx) to a secure safe room. He then proceeds to shoot everyone except the President. 

Confused yet? Well, it gets better. 

Apparently, Walker’s son was killed on a military mission fighting terrorism in the middle east. He’s pissed the US hasn’t won the war on terror yet, so he gets a group of the FBI’s most wanted and uses them as a mercenary force to carry out this plan to steal the secret presidential missile launch codes, destabilize the US government, kill a lot of government employees and civilians and… nuke all terrorists, I guess? 

Anyway, Emily wonders off, John goes to save his daughter and ends up defending the President, like a real-life secret service agent, the White House gets really messed up, Cale never gets injured, President Sawyer gets shot and blown up, but never dies, somebody with authority thinks it’s a good idea to call an air strike on the White House and just as the last bad guy gets killed Emily runs onto the White House lawn. She waves a flag, which the military pilots take as a signal to defy orders and break off the strike.

There’s a lot to unpack and critique in this movie. But I’ll start by saying that while some may say it’s stupid, others may say it’s a blockbuster popcorn movie meant to be an exciting ride, not taken seriously, White House Down had a really good cast. They just weren’t used very well here. And this points us to the true source of the problem, bad writing and a director that doesn’t seem to have anything to say.

Director Roland Emmerich is Hollywood’s go-to director for big-budget, over-the-top action movies categorized as disaster porn. Think Independence Day (1996), Godzilla (1998), The Day After Tomorrow (2004), 2012 (2009), and most recently, Moonfall (2022). He puts on a big show, but the end result is often underdeveloped, uninspired, shallow, and an obvious cash grab offering his audience nothing more than spectacle. Emmerich had a couple of good movies early in his career. Stargate (1994) was a great movie, and I still have a soft spot in my heart for Independence Day, even though it’s far from a perfect film. But it seems like everything Emmerich has done since then has been riding on the success of those movies. But very few of them are worth seeing. It seems nobody wants to tell him it isn’t enough to buy state-of-the-art special effects so you can continue to destroy national monuments. You have to tell a well-crafted story that makes the audience care about the characters.

This brings me to the script. James Vanderbilt has made a lot of money writing some very underwhelming movies. For example, he wrote Basic (2003), The Losers (2010), and Independence Day: Resurgence (2016). He also wrote Zodiac(2007) and The Amazing Spider-Man movies, which had their issues, but I liked them. With White House Down, Vanderbilt seemed to be trying to follow the template for Die Hard but missing all the details that made that film great. We cared about Bruce Willis’s safety and felt a very real sense of tension throughout the movie. 

There was no tension anywhere in White House Down, and aside from taking a few kicks to the ribs, there were no stakes for John Cale. We never doubt for a second that he will find and rescue Emily. The terrorists in Die Hard had very understandable and achievable goals. The terrorists in White House Down had the opposite. They all seemed to be working for different goals, but the only one who actually says what his objectives are is Walker, and they’re ridiculous. Not only is he lacking in any believable motivation, but his actions as a terrorist contradict his stated purpose as a father who lost his son combating terrorism. Not to mention this movie gives the impression that in a post-9/11 world, anyone can just walk into a government building with a bomb and blow it up.

Anyone who knows me knows I hate one Hollywood trope above all others. I call it vilifying the children. It’s when kids are forced into a story that serve no purpose other than creating problems for every adult that crosses their path. Here that kid was Emily Cale. In the movie, she’s Channing Tatum’s daughter, but her actual role is as an anchor preventing her dad from rescuing the president and escaping without getting killed. Because if she weren’t roaming the halls of the White House getting video footage of heavily armed terrorists to post on her YouTube channel, the movie would only be 90 minutes long instead of over two hours. Apparently, this is essential as the run time for White House Down and Die Hard only differ by one minute.

In every instance of this, I ask the same question. Why? Why is a trouble-making kid the only way to keep the main character engaged in the plot? Why is it not more important to have smartly written villains over mischievous children? Why can’t the kids be smart and helpful in these movies rather than a nuisance? It’s a boring cliché of a trope that needs to be retired.

I hate to do it, but I have to mention Jamie Foxx as President Sawyer. Barack Obama he was not, and casting Jamie Foxx as President of the United States was a mistake. Using the President as the sidekick/comic relief just doesn’t work. Olympus Has Fallen (2013) came out the same year, had almost the exact same premise, and gave us Morgan Freeman as President. Granted, that movie was a dumpster fire too. But at least Morgan Freeman comes off as presidential. Maybe the casting contrast was to differentiate the movies, but it was still a mistake.

I’ll finish by saying bad as movies like White House Down come off to anyone who bothers to examine them; they do serve a purpose. There are theater patrons out there who enjoy the spectacle and almost comical nature of this type of action movie, and there are plenty out there to choose from. But more importantly, they make us appreciate the rare and wonderful moments when we experience greatness on film. When something like Die Hard comes along and sets the new standard for what action films can be. 

For example, at one point in the movie Cale and Sawyer take off in a presidential car tagged as “Ground Force One.” I don’t know if that’s a real thing, but I suspect that was more comic relief. A car chase begins where they’re doing laps around the White House lawn, trying to find an opening in the fence where they can drive to safety. Sawyer remembers there’s a weapons locker in the back seat. He opens it and pulls out a chrome-plated rocket launcher. Sawyer hits Cale in the head with it as he’s trying to get into position to use it. He manages to fire it and blow the gate open but accidentally drops the only weapon they had.

Yes, a chrome-plated rocket launcher was the only weapon in a weapons locker in a presidential armor-plated car. At that moment, I really found renewed appreciation for Die Hard, John McClane, and Argyle, the limo driver.