Roland Emmerich’s take on the “Die Hard in the White House” action set-up that was visited earlier this year in Antoine Fuqua’s Olympus Has Fallen, is a far bigger, louder and more ludicrous affair. Channing Tatum plays the wannabe Secret Service agent who finds himself – along with his tech-savvy teenage daughter – trapped in the White House just s it’s taken over by some very angry terrorists. Soon enough he has teamed up with young, hands-on Prez Jamie Foxx and the film becomes a buddy action comedy as they attempt to foil the plan and restore order to the capital.
The scale here is far grander, with rocket launchers, car chases on the front lawn and an escalated level of destruction that sees the Capitol Building levelled (this is Emmerich after all), while the threat here proves a domestic rather than foreign one when all is eventually revealed. It’s all rather ridiculous, however, and tries too hard to be knowing, ironic and self-effacing, rather than knuckling down and simply embracing its B Movie genre identity.
