“If you feed a man, you take away his propensity for violence.” This is what immediately sets this movie apart from all other Presidential movies, because the president is a legitimate good guy who wishes to improve the state of poverty within the United States. Secondly, it’s established that the war in the middle East is a massive waste of money that could have been spent bettering the people of that area. And that they’ve established peace talks with Iran in addition to removing all troops. This is within 10 mins of the movie starting. Could you imagine how much better the world would be?
The best part is the news stations talking about how American companies who do business with the military wouldn’t like that one bit. A nice bit of foreshadowing. “All they wanna do is keep the cycle of war going” and “these corporations have been in bed with radical regimes for years.” And another goodie, “those bases are just for show, we could launch a drone off any carrier in the gulf and hit any target we want.” Another gem “The military industrial complex. Those are the manufacturers of the weapons. They think the own the system and they will do anything to keep that power. They profit off your sacrifice.”
With those political leanings out of the way, the movie gets into the nitty gritty with a bomb set off inside the White House and soon armed men take over. What follows is quite enjoyable action scenes with rewarding fights that see our hero, John Cale, played by Channing Tatum, kick ass and taking names. Baddies just fall to his guns, and he essentially is John McLane (even the name is similar). It’s basically Die Hard but inside the White House. And going with that comparison, the jokes are similar and the tone is as well. Jamie Foxx plays the president and he did a good enough job. I mean there’s no standard for it given the current president in the US is far below standards, so if anything, this is quite a great job by Jamie Foxx.
James Woods does a fantastic job of a bitter head of secret service because his son, a marine, was killed during a black ops mission orchestrated by Mr Foxx’s character. He tends to chew the scenery around him, and makes the mercenary head bad guy pale in comparison (played by Jason Clarke). I enjoyed this movie because the bad guys weren’t international but good ole homegrown Americans that wish to keep the status quo going. It feels reminiscent of the times. The director, Roland Emmerich, did a great job at navigating his story. Several scenes are done with his signature style of CGI and explosives, and he even gets his own movie mentioned, Independence Day.
Overall, I recommend this movie if you’re in the mood for some light hearted comedy and action. If you enjoy Die Hard, then you’ll enjoy this as well.
Bogdan's Review Blog 