White House Down review

The white-vest-in-action genre continues with this patriotic and self-indulgent blockbuster. It’s a case of boys will be boys.

In a nutshell, it’s a story of a terrorist attack on the White

House and a rejected cop (Channing Tatum) who tries to save the President (Jamie Foxx) by taking on the bad guys in his mean white vest.

Dress up as a janitor and wheel an exploding trolley. Surely it can’t be that easy to blow up one of Americas most historical buildings? No, let’s hope. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take Hollywood too long to snap James Vanderbilt’s formula script with clichés coming out of its ludicrous ears.

There are many suspension of beyond disbelief moments that make you do a OMG face and laugh. The car chase on the White House lawn of all places (OMG) and the President holding a gun wearing his favourite trainers (bigger OMG). And there’s more, in a highly security conscious building you have a tour guide and random people walking about like it’s a museum. (HUGE OMG).

Director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, 2012) is skilled in providing sheer entertainment. The set pieces are fun and explosive (ahem) and us Brits get a big screen tour of the White House. Lovely. The similar but superior Olympus has Fallen was effective because it focused on the dramatic elements of an attack whereas WHD is simply a wham, bam thank you Mr President approach.

Tatum and Foxx work well together. The banter between them is fun and they deliver some great one liners. Credit to Maggie

Gyllenhaal for her calmness in the midst of chaos.

Rahim Galia