White House Down

White House Down
File:White House Down poster with billing block.jpg Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Roland Emmerich
Produced by	Roland Emmerich Bradley J. Fischer Harald Kloser James Vanderbilt Larry Franco Laeta Kalogridis
Written by	James Vanderbilt
Starring	Channing Tatum Jamie Foxx Maggie Gyllenhaal Jason Clarke Richard Jenkins James Woods Joey King
Music by	Harald Kloser Thomas Wanker
Cinematography	Anna Foerster
Edited by	Adam Wolfe
Production company	Centropolis Entertainment Mythology Entertainment
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release dates	June 28, 2013 (2013-06-28) (United States)
Running time	131 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$150 million
Box office	$205.4 million

White House Down is a 2013 American action thriller film directed by Roland Emmerich about an assault on the White House by a paramilitary group and the Capitol Police Officer who tries to stop them. The film's screenplay is by James Vanderbilt, and it stars Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx, with Maggie Gyllenhaal, James Woods, Jason Clarke, Joey King, and Richard Jenkins in supporting roles. The film was released on June 28, 2013 and grossed $205 million worldwide.

Plot

President of the United States James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx) is generating controversy over a proposed peace treaty between the allied nations to remove military forces from the Middle East.

John Cale (Channing Tatum) is a divorced US Capitol Police officer assigned to Speaker of the House Eli Raphelson (Richard Jenkins) after saving his nephew's life during a tour in Afghanistan. His daughter Emily (Joey King), who has a strong enthusiasm for politics, isn't on the greatest of terms with him. He hopes to impress her by getting a job with the Secret Service protecting the President, but Carol Finnerty (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a former college acquaintance of his who believes him to be unqualified due to a lack of follow-through and respect for authority, deems him unworthy. To avoid admitting the truth to Emily, Cale takes her on a tour of the White House.

A man disguised as a janitor detonates a bomb at the center of the US Capitol building. Raphelson and Finnerty are taken to an underground command center in the Pentagon, while Vice President of the United States Alvin Hammond (Michael Murphy) is taken aboard Air Force One. The White House is put on lockdown, separating Cale from Emily, who went to the restroom. Mercenaries led by Emil Stenz (Jason Clarke), who had disguised themselves as video technicians to get inside the White House, start killing off most of the Secret Service and take the tour group hostage, but Cale manages to take a gun and escape to go find his daughter. Retiring Head of the Presidential Detail Martin Walker (James Woods) escorts the President and his detail to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center. Once Sawyer gains access, Walker kills his detail, revealing himself to be the real leader who wants vengeance against President Sawyer after a botched black ops mission resulted in the death of Walker's son. Cale, who failed to find Emily, kills a mercenary and takes his gun and radio. Overhearing the radio, Cale locates and rescues President Sawyer.

Walker and Stenz bring in Skip Tyler (Jimmi Simpson) to hack into their defense system, but they still require Sawyer to activate the nuclear football. They locate the remaining chain of command and execute the Secretary of Defense before putting them with the hostages. Carl Killick (Kevin Rankin) catches Emily recording a video of the mercenaries and takes her hostage. Cale and Sawyer manage to contact the command structure, who tell Cale to get the President out through underground tunnels. The command structure uses Emily's video to discover the identities of the mercenaries, who used to work for various government agencies. They also discover that Walker has an inoperable tumor, suggesting his involvement is a suicide mission and that he is planning something more dangerous. Cale and Sawyer find the tunnel gate rigged with an explosive and are forced to escape with a presidential limo. After giving chase with Stenz on the White House lawn, Cale and Sawyer get flipped into the White House pool after Cale gets distracted by Killick holding Emily at gunpoint. A gunfight erupts which results in an explosion that leaves Sawyer and Cale presumed dead. Vice President Hammond is then sworn in as the 47th President of the United States.

When Cale and Sawyer reveal they are still alive, they learn that President Hammond has ordered an aerial incursion to take back the White House, but the mercenaries shoot down the choppers with Javelins. Cale drops his White House passes for himself and Emily while escaping after fighting Stenz. Having already learned of Emily from the video, Stenz, now knowing she is Cale's daughter, takes her to Walker in the Oval Office. Tyler finally finishes the upload into NORAD and launches a missile to shoot down Air Force One, killing President Hammond and everyone on board. Speaker of the House Raphelson is then sworn in as the 48th President of the United States and reluctantly orders an air strike on the White House, of which Cale is informed.

Walker tells Cale over the White House intercom to surrender Sawyer or Stenz will kill Emily. Sawyer ultimately surrenders himself to save Emily, and Walker reveals his true plan: to use the football to launch the nuclear missiles against the various cities in Iran, which will result in retaliation by many countries and the start of World War III. Sawyer refuses to activate the football, but when Walker threatens to kill Emily again, the alarms and sprinklers are set off by Cale setting various rooms on fire. Tyler is killed while trying to escape by the bomb on the tunnel gate having been tampered with. After killing most of the remaining mercenaries and freeing the hostages, Cale is confronted by Stenz, and blows him up with a grenade belt. Sawyer attacks a distracted Walker, who ultimately gains the upper hand and uses him to activate the football before apparently shooting him dead. Using updated launch codes received by an anonymous source, Walker begins targeting various cities in Iran, but before he initiates the launch, Cale crashes into the office and kills him with a minigun. Emily waves a presidential flag on the front lawn, which calls off the fighter strike. The news media declare Emily a hero and Sawyer is revealed to be alive as the bullet had hit a pocket watch handed down to him from Abraham Lincoln. Finnerty calls Cale to reveal that Walker didn't call in the mercenaries, and that there is another mastermind behind the attack.

When Finnerty arrives at the White House with President Raphelson, Cale tells them President Sawyer was killed. Raphelson then orders troops to be sent back into the Middle East, which would go against President Sawyer's peace treaty. Cale presses President Raphelson about conspiring with Walker to orchestrate the attack and proves it by having Finnerty dial his pager number. Sawyer arrives and has President Raphelson arrested. President Sawyer names Cale as his new special agent, and takes him and Emily on a personalized aerial tour of DC.

Cast

• Channing Tatum as John Cale, a United States Capitol Police officer and now secret service agent.
• Jamie Foxx as James William Sawyer, the President of the United States.
• Joey King as Emily Cale, the daughter of John Cale.
• Maggie Gyllenhaal as Carol Finnerty, Secret Service Presidential Detail.
• Jason Clarke as Emil Stenz, an ex-Delta Force and Central Intelligence Agency operative. Leader of the right wing mercenaries.
• Richard Jenkins as Eli Raphelson, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and mastermind of the attack.
• James Woods as Martin Walker, the Head of the Secret Service Presidential Detail.
• Nicolas Wright as Donnie Donaldson, the White House Tour Guide.
• Jimmi Simpson as Skip Tyler, a computer hacker and the technical specialist in Stenz's group.
• Lance Reddick as General Caulfield, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
• Rachelle Lefevre as Melanie, the ex-wife of John Cale.
• Kevin Rankin as Carl Killick, a right-wing militant and one of Stenz's henchmen.
• Michael Murphy as Alvin Hammond, the Vice President of the United States.
• Matt Craven as Kellerman, a Capitol Police officer.
• Jake Weber as Ted Hope, a Secret Service agent.
• Peter Jacobson as Wallace, Chief of Staff of the Vice President.
• Barbara Williams as Muriel Walker, Martin Walker's wife.
• Anthony Lemke as Captain Hutton, an analyst in the Pentagon.
• Vincent Leclerc as Ryan Todd, a Secret Service agent.
• Garcelle Beauvais as Alison Sawyer, the First Lady of the United States.
• Kyle Gatehouse as Conrad Cern, a right-wing white supremacist and one of Stenz's henchmen.
• Falk Hentschel as Motts, one of Stenz's henchmen.
• Jackie Geary as Jenna, assistant to the Vice President.

Production

White House Down is directed by Roland Emmerich and based on a screenplay by James Vanderbilt, who is also one of the film's producers. Sony Pictures purchased Vanderbilt's spec script in March 2012 for $3 million, in what The Hollywood Reporter called "one of the biggest spec sales in quite a while". The journal said the script was similar "tonally and thematically" to the films Die Hard and Air Force One. In the following April, Sony hired Roland Emmerich as director. Emmerich began filming in July 2012 at the La Cité Du Cinéma in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Cinematographer Anna Foerster shot the film with Arri Alexa Plus digital cameras.

In 2012, Sony competed with Millennium Films, who were producing Olympus Has Fallen (also about a takeover of the White House) to complete casting and to begin filming.

Release

White House Down was originally scheduled for a November 1, 2013 release, but was moved up to a June 28, 2013 release.

Home media

White House Down was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on November 5, 2013.

Reception

Critical response

White House Down received mixed reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a rating of 51%, based on 182 reviews, with a weighted average of 5.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "White House Down benefits from the leads' chemistry, but director Roland Emmerich smothers the film with narrative clichés and choppily edited action." At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score to reviews, the film has an average score of 52 out of 100, based on 43 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Roth Cornet of IGN gives it a 6.5/10, concluding: "White House Down is a pretty silly rehashing of previously tread action movie territory, but if you're willing to laugh along with (or even at) it, it can be a highly entertaining experience."

Andrew Chan of the Film Critics Circle of Australia writes, "I am not entirely sure, whether I should be happy or sad that I laughed when someone got shot or bombed, but such is the manner of how the film is played out. Therefore, I prefer Olympus for this one."

Richard Roeper, however, gave the film an F, stating that "Everyone in White House Down is an idiot, clinically insane, a cliché, or a vehicle for shameless exploitation." He later named it the worst film of 2013.

Box office

The film grossed $73.1 million in the United States and $132.3 million internationally for a total gross of $205.4 million, against a budget of $150 million.

On its opening weekend in the U.S., the film disappointed and came in at 4th at the box office. It earned $24.9 million, less than March's similarly themed Olympus Has Fallen ($30.4 million opening). In its second weekend, the film made $13.4 million.

In October 2013, Sony announced it lost $197 million for June, July, and August 2013, and largely blamed "the box office flop of the movie White House Down as a key reason for the weakness".

See also

• Olympus Has Fallen (2013)
• Transfer of Power (1999)

External links

• White House Down at IMDb
• White House Down at Box Office Mojo
• White House Down at Rotten Tomatoes
• White House Down at Metacritic
• White House Down at AllMovie by Jason Buchanan