There are bad
movies and there are bad movies. And if
that is not sufficient then there are even more horrible movies. What gets to your nerves is when otherwise
excellent directors such as Roland Emmerich suddenly decide to tell you that
you were wrong about them all this while.
By the time I was
done with the 2+ hours of White House Down, I was exhausted. Not only because it was the 5th of
as many movies released on the day, but also because I had to arduously go
through a screenplay and story that was trite and sub-standard. There is nothing that can explain to me as to
why WHD survived over 3 weekends in this market. Probably a reflection of our immensely
capability to absorb crap as an audience.
To begin with, a
movie that has a supposed World Class Director and an Oscar winner in the lead,
there is little or no indication of the existence of direction or acting. One cannot expect much from Channing Tatum
even if he is given the plummest of roles but Jamie Foxx? What were you upto?
Lets look at the
boring storyline. Cale (Tatum) is part of
a lower level security detail that covers the lesser mortals in the US
Government. In this case, the Speaker of
the House. He wants to join the secret
service and appears for an interview. He
also has another goal – to impress his daughter Emily (Joey King).
The interview is
unsuccessful but on their way out, Cale and Emily decide to join a bunch of
people touring The White House. It is at
this moment that a group of extremists lay siege on what should be the most
secure house in the whole wide world.
The siege is a success in a matter of a few minutes.
The rest of the
story, predictably revolves around some dinkum about how one man who cannot
qualify for the secret service, has enough in him to take down a bunch of
professional hitmen who have just taken down the White House. They have the highest of tech accessible to
them but a flunkie is just too much!!!
A big chunk of
the movie is mindless bombing and random machine guns firing all across the
house of the leader of the free world.
There are some not so fascinating facts about secret passages and
laundry chutes and ac ducts and god only knows what else because the movie lost
me about 30 minutes in.
There are no
dialogues worth recollecting. The
screenplay is tacky but with a story like this, there is not much that could
have been done. There could have been at
least 30 minutes chopped from the end cut.
The music doesn’t give you any excitement. In short, this one will lead for the Razzies
this year for certain. Probably across
categories. 2 on 10. Really bad. Don’t waste your time.
Watch the trailer
on http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1969202713/?ref_=tt_ov_vi
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