

#Olympus has fallen and white house down crack
Led by a taciturn Korean villain fresh out of the Hollywood clone vat (Rick Yune), a crack team of shady super-commandos takes the president hostage after swarming the White House with the brutal efficiency of 15-year-olds playing Call of Duty. The terrorist plot in Olympus Has Fallen is dumb to an irresponsible degree. “You’ve got to get me to the safe! It’s got my real birth certificate in it!” The Plot: Extreme Makeover: White House Edition Most importantly, Foxx plays Sawyer with a double measure of Obama’s understated wit, and you can tell Jamie Foxx is yukking it up trading barbs with Channing Tatum in buddy-cop fashion.

When you’re first introduced to Sawyer, you feel vaguely icky because comparing him to Obama is your first impulse, and then you’re wondering “am I just doing this because they’re both black?” The movie, however, anticipates your racial discomfort and is thoughtful enough to alleviate it by offering up some concrete similarities to Obama (culminating in a hilarious scene where the stressed-out president chomps on some nicotine gum). He’s a vaguely liberal figure (vaguely is good enough for this movie) with identifiable beliefs and policy objectives that he’s willing to go to bat for even at literal gunpoint. White House Down’s president, James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx) is a much more fun character. His function in Olympus Has Fallen is to get tied up, scowl and bark at the terrorists, and look resolute. His party, ideology, style, or objectives are likewise a complete cipher. His appearance and demeanor pointedly avoid evoking any real president. He’s not particularly charismatic, but he’s Jackie fucking Gleason compared to the person-shaped wooden blocks filling up the rest of the cast. Olympus Has Fallen has Aaron Eckhart as President Benjamin Asher, and he’s… fine. Show the class what Grimly Determined looks like, dear. He ain’t contending for an Oscar, but unlike Butler, he speaks and emotes in a manner befitting a human being, and you never once suspect that he’s actually a bunch of antelope meat grafted onto a Terminator chassis.

Tatum brings a warmth and relatability to his character that Kung-Fu-Grip Butler’s just not capable of. Thus, both he and his daughter are unexpectedly in the building when the terrorists strike, and poor dumb Cale has to overcome his big dumb self and rescue everybody. Cale’s in the White House by pure chance: when the terrorist attack goes down, he’s on a dual mission to interview for a job with the Secret Service (which rejects him), and also try to buy the love of his politically-obsessed daughter with a White House tour.
#Olympus has fallen and white house down movie
For two movies that are transparent Die Hard ripoffs, only White House Down bothered to get a proper McClane namely, an underqualified everyman doofus who bumbles and bluffs his way through the movie and succeeds through gumption. Capital Police Officer John Cale, and he too plays his character in a manner that won’t surprise anyone who’s seen him in a movie before. In White House Down, Channing Tatum plays U.S. Director Anton Fuqua does nothing to make this plot point seem authentic it mostly just serves to explain why Banning isn’t already in the White House (sending the subtle message in the process that the president’s possession of normal human emotions-like some woman!-very nearly spells his and the country’s undoing). See, it’s not that Banning got demoted for his incompetence, or even that he’s emotionally tortured by his failure it’s that the president himself (Aaron Eckhart) is triggered by having to see him every day. Except they found a way to screw up even that comically simple plot point. He’s also got a tragic backstory about how he failed to save the First Lady during a car crash and now he’s working a desk job. He’s got a wife, but she might as well be a houseplant for all the difference she makes. (“Let’s play a game of fuck off you go first.” Ughhhh.) You can tell that nothing tasty was on those dishes.) He buffalos through the movie making one perfect kill shot after another, stabbing multiple people in the head, engaging in morally dubious interrogation methods, and occasionally tilting his square head and letting Xbox-Live-worthy one-liners tumble out. (Not even particularly interesting dishwater. Personality-wise, he’s dull as dishwater. He’s a Secret Service agent and a super-decorated, super-elite murderbot. Gerard Butler stars in Olympus Has Fallen as Mike Banning, and he plays the character exactly as you’d expect. ADVERTISEMENT The Protagonists: A Lone Gunman is After the President
