WHITE HOUSE DOWN Is Ridiculous ... But Also Ridiculously Entertaining

WHITE HOUSE DOWN Review:

- The marketing of White House Down was all wrong. I can't help but wonder if the misdirection contributed to the film's underwhelming box office performance. The ads and trailers made this out to be some sort of gritty, hardcore action film. But in reality, it's anything but. This is, thankfully, vintage Roland Emmerich. Big, bombastic, cheesy as all hell, and possessing of a childlike glee and unironic grandiosity that has become Emmerich's trademark over the years. Think of it this way: Spielberg's classic family films appeal to your inner eight-year-old - wish-fulfillment fantasies that play off of childhood fears and flights of fancy. Michael Bay's cynical Transformer films repackage childhood nostalgia for the too-cool-for-toys high school jocks. Emmerich hits that sweet spot just in between. His movies are BEST MOVIE EVER! material for twelve and thirteen year olds everywhere. They're fundamentally innocent and naive, but there's just enough over-the-top violence, epic scope, and strategically-timed profanity to give them that added cool-factor. I mean, I still remember that day in 1994, coming out of the theater after watching Independence Day, having been rocked to my twelve year old core. This, I was convinced, was the best thing I'd ever seen. The movie had everything I ever dreamed of in one film: aliens, aerial battles, Area 51, and Jews kicking ass. It was everything my preteen self wanted in a movie and more. I imagine that one or two twelve year olds are going to get a similar feeling of "best thing ever" after walking out of WHITE HOUSE DOWN. No, it's not in the same league as Independence Day, but there's a similarly unbridled sense of movie-making joy at play here. It's not particularly smart or cerebral or sophisticated. Logic is sparse. But holy hell, does Roland Emmerich go all out here. Lacking a subtle bone in his body, Emmerich crafts a movie that is joyously, eye-rollingly ridiculous, and, undoubtedly hugely entertaining. You will probably lose brain cells - many brain cells - while watching it. But hey, this is what Emmerich does, and does well. It's a summer blockbuster for the twelve year old in all of us.

Where Emmerich has always drawn comparisons to Spielberg is the way in which the big action arcs of his movies intertwine with more personal arcs that are, in their own way, just as integral to the story. And so, Emmerich takes his time in this one setting the stage for the carnage to come. He introduces us to Channing Tatum's John Cale - a White House security staffer who's hoping to make a career upgrade to the President's secret service detail. It's all part of the divorced Cale's plan to get his life back on track, and to impress his preteen daughter Emily (Joey King) - a budding political and presidential buff. When Cale goes for his interview (conducted by Maggie Gyllenhaal's head-of-secret-service, who happens to be an old flame), Emily accompanies him, so that the two can take a tour of the White House together afterwards. As the two take the tour (and Cale mopes after being denied the job - seems he's got raw potential but not the qualifications), all hell breaks loose. As it turns out, the President (a very Obama-esque Jamie Foxx) is looking to sign a controversial Middle East peace treaty, and certain right wingers want to stop it at any cost. With the help of an inside man or two, the White House is attacked by a paramilitary group (led by Zero Dark Thirty's Jason Clarke), and Emily is part of a group taken hostage by the bad guys. Of course, Cale is left as all that's standing between the attackers and their potentially earth-shattering plans.

Here's another area where the movie's marketing was misleading: the ads made it seem like this was to be the Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx show. But the truth is much more exciting, in that the two leads are surrounded by a ton of fantastic supporting players. A trademark of Emmerich's films is a strong ensemble cast, and White House Down is no different. And for a movie like this, you need people who can pull off earnest and over-the-top without getting too silly. Luckily, the movie is in some ways carried by young Joey King. She's great as Emily - smart and sweet, but creeping up on teenager-ish smart alecky tendencies. We all know that kid characters can be super annoying in this sort of movie, unless played by a special talent who knows how to play things just right. Luckily, King is up to the task, and plays a kid who other kids can identify with and root for, and who adults will only roll their eyes at once or twice.

Also, dude ... Lance Reddick is in this movie. He's really just a minor side character, but I'm still going to mention him right up top. Because Lance Reddick is awesome, and he is basically *the* best actor in the biz at selling lines like "Sir, Norad has been compromised." and making otherwise insane-sounding things seem totally badass and gravitas-infused. Note to all movie marketing people: put Lance Reddick in your movie trailers, and I'll know that the film is legit. Meanwhile - and from the trailers, who knew? - a crap ton of other awesome people are in this movie. People like the great Richard Jenkins, as the meek Speaker of the House, and James Woods, as the retiring Head of Presidential Detail, who ends up playing a major, unexpected part in the film. Yep, Lance Reddick, Richard Jenkins, and James Woods are ALL IN THIS MOVIE, and they each kick a fair degree of ass, hamming it up and doing what they do best.

Jason Clarke is great as a take-no-prisoners mercenary type. This guy is going places. Also excellent as a villain is Kevin Rankin - so good on Justified as Devil - as Clarke's redneck right-hand-man. Jimmi Simpson is also awesomely evil as the team's psycho-sinister computer hacker. This is another area where Emmerich channels Spielberg - each of his characters has some quirk or defining trait that makes them stand out. No generic stuff here. Suffice it to say, what could have been a bland team of villains is made hugely entertaining thanks to the antics of Clarke, Rankin, and Simpson.

As for Tatum and Foxx, both are good, but in some ways, they may be the weakest part of the movie. Tatum is okay as the leading man, but to me, he still lacks the sort of action-hero charisma that you want for this sort of movie. It's weird, because he's proven that he can be funny as hell in movies like 21 Jump St. But as an heir apparent to the Stallones and Schwarzennegers of the world, I'm not quite sure he has what it takes. Foxx, meanwhile, was so good in Django, and perhaps that movie was still too fresh in my mind to take him seriously as the kind of guy who could become president. Foxx adopts several Obama mannerisms and tics (he even chews Nicorette gum), but to me, there was never any doubt that his President Sawyer would be able to kick ass when called upon. And so scenes where we're supposed to be shocked and delighted that this President can mix it up with the terrorists mano e mano, well, they aren't all that shocking. And Foxx plays President Sawyer as a somewhat comedic character - you can see him revert to his over-the-top Living Color days when he's quipping and spouting one liners. Point being, this is the sort of movie where the actors need to play it totally straight for things to work (think Bill Pullman in Independence Day). Foxx is a little too broadly comic at times for us to take his Prez very seriously.

Back to Emmerich for a second ... the director does give in to modernity a bit and throws in some quick-cut editing and shaky-cam fight scenes here and there. Mostly though, watching WHITE HOUSE DOWN is a pleasant reminder of how a good action director can craft a battle or fight scene that's exciting and tells a story, all while being relatively easy to follow. Emmerich doesn't get enough credit as a great action director - he does Michael Bay style bombast without all the visual excess - he keeps things clean, and knows how to do big money shots for maximum dramatic effect. If anything, he at times overdoes the melodrama. Like I said, there isn't a subtle bone in his body. And so certain moments are *so* melodramatic that they are just too much. At the same time, I think that Emmerich is above all a showman, and he seems pretty well aware that he's crafting over-the-top, borderline ridiculous entertainment. He knows he's doing a live-action cartoon, and the humor and numerous winks at the audience in the film speak to that.

At the end of the day, on the grand sliding scale of Roland Emmerich summer blockbusters, this one falls well below the legendary awesomeness of Independence Day, but well above more mediocre efforts like The Day After Tomorrow. And, hey, maybe it's just me, but as the years go by, Emmerich's old-school brand of popcorn spectacle takes on an increasing tinge of nostalgic charm. What was once controversial and shocking now feels safe, reliable, and relatively harmless. In the world of Emmerich, Presidents can personally deliver K-O's to terrorists, a down-on-his-luck blue-collar schmo can save the world *and* win back the love of his daughter, and nobody - and I mean nobody - can get one over on the good ol' U-S-of-A. Cheesy? Sure. Ridiculous? Hell yeah. But in some ways, this is all you could want from a dumb-fun summer blockbuster. Bring the whole family, and enjoy.

My Grade: B+

ZERO DARK THIRTY Is a Riveting Account of the War On Terror

ZERO DARK THIRTY Review:

- Zero Dark Thirty is one powerhouse of a film - a riveting mix of CIA procedural, real-life recent history, character-based drama, and ultra-intense actioner. Between this and The Hurt Locker, director Kathryn Bigelow is having one hell of a second act. She's making damn good movies - films that are ultra entertaining narratives that also have an immediacy, a relevance, an of-the-now electricity, that is unrivaled. What's so amazing to me about Zero Dark Thirty is that it serves as both a fact-based account of a landmark moment in recent US history, and as a smart, measured, non-politicized examination of that moment - of its implications on the national psyche, and on the psyches of those directly involved in the op. The op, of course, is the years-long hunt to find and kill Osama Bin Laden in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It's a remarkable story on a number of levels, and Zero Dark Thirty brilliantly captures the many facets of what unfolded. Featuring several incredible performances, a no-nonsense yet still-multilayered storytelling style, and a pulsing intensity that leaves you on the edge-of-your-seat, Zero Dark Thirty is one of the year's best films, hands-down.

Bigelow's film focuses in on Maya (Jessica Chastain), a spitfire CIA agent who was recruited directly out of high school. Her whole career has been focused on one thing - finding Osama Bin Laden. And now, as she's shipped off to Pakistan - where Al Qaeda prisoners are kept in lockdown, tortured for any intel they might possess - she finds herself at the epicenter of that search. Bigelow opens the film on a haunting note - playing audio feeds of phone calls from the WTC on 9/11, playing snippets of news reports - reminding us of the horror of that day. With one fell swoop, she sets the stakes for this film. The evils perpetrated by Bin Laden and his agents are now fresh in our mind as we flashforward a few years, where the hunt for the terrorist mastermind continues.

But that hunt is going poorly. The CIA keeps coming up against dead-ends, and their methods of information extraction - cringe-inducing torture among them - are producing few useful results. In Pakistan, Maya meets Dan (Jason Clarke) - the site's chief torturer and information-gatherer. She also begins working with Jessica (Jennifer Ehle) - a world-weary analyst. They're all under the purview of Joseph (Kyle Chandler), their supervisor, who has grown cynical and short-tempered after so many of his efforts to decimate Al Qaeda have fallen flat. However, the arrival of Maya gives the group a new spark. Dogged and determined, she becomes obsessed with a potential lead that she believes is the key to finding Bin Laden - a courier named Abu Ahmed, who is said to be Bin Laden's personal messenger. Find him, and find Bin Laden. Easier said than done, sure, but Maya refuses to back down or give up. And her persistence and force of personality ends up sending shockwaves all the way to Washington, where the intel she uncovers, eventually, leads to the now-famous nighttime raid on a walled Pakistani compound.

Jessica Chastain is phenomenal as Maya. It's one of my favorite performances of the year, because it's somehow both naturalistic and hyper-dramatic all at once. Maya feels like a real woman, a fully-fleshed-out character, who has plenty of quirks and flaws but who you can't help but admire and root for. Chastain gives her the essence of the down-home girl-next-door who's also sort of a genius, and also just a tad crazy. But man, when it comes time for the big, dramatic scenes ... Chastain is also able to go big and knock 'em out of the park. If this was any other actress, we'd probably be complaining about overexposure of late. But Chastain is so good that you can't fault Hollywood for casting her whenever possible. Another big revelation here though is Jason Clarke as Dan - one of the most subtly interesting and complex characters in the film. Dan is, on one hand, a laid-back, friendly, easygoing dude, who calls everyone "bro" and amuses himself in the Pakistani desert by affectionately playing with monkeys he keeps around the CIA base. And yet, he wearily partakes in savage sessions of torture, inflicting great harm on his prisoners even as he buddies up to them. It's a fascinating dynamic, and Clarke plays it to perfection. It's funny, because in Chastain and Clarke we sort of get an microcosm of America in a post-9/11 world. Conflicted, filled with a mix of rage and empathy, left with lingering fears, and consumed by a desire for closure. Both characters also embody the film's naturalistic, non-judgemental storytelling style. Bigelow never tells us what to think of these people, never hits us over the head with judgement. She simply presents this story and these characters as is, and lets us take away from them what we will. That said, she also gives us a lot to chew on. The big issues - the politics of torture, the hopelessness of winning over religious fanatics, the debate of whether to use the carrot or the stick - it's all here. The movie makes you think, deeply, about these issues. But it doesn't do your thinking for you, and never talks down to or lectures the audience.

There are a ton of other standouts in the cast. Mark Strong brings heavy-duty gravitas as a CIA bigwig who reams his lieutenants for not bringing him enough terrorists to kill. James Gandolfini is the been-there, done-that old hat who sees in Maya the kind of vim and vigor that, perhaps, he once had. Joel Edgerton is badass as a gruff Navy SEAL, and Chris Pratt of Parks and Recreation provides some comic relief as a SEAL who gets his kicks from well-timed gallows humor (he blasts Tony Robbins on the way to kill Bin Laden). The previously mentioned Jennifer Ehle is also a standout, especially as she begins to form a sisterly bond with Maya and becomes a confidante. Kyle Chandler is a good foil for Chastain, and Harold Perrineau - of Lost fame - is also solid as a CIA techie.

I mentioned Joel Edgerton and Chris Pratt as two of the Navy SEALS from the squad that raids that Pakistani compound. I should also mention that, as intense as the movie is for much of its running time, Bigelow and team take it to another level during the last-act SEAL raid sequence. Even though we know the end-results, it's an incredibly-shot, white-knuckle ride that is exciting and terrifying, while also being strikingly un-glamorized and stark in its realness.

Bigelow and writer Mark Boal divide the film into titled chapters, and it's an effective tactic. The chapter structure allows the film to jump from year to year, location to location, in a seamless manner. Despite a long running time, the movie zips by with a relentless pace. And the tension builds and builds - as the spycraft, interrogations, backroom politics, and personal struggles mount ... culminating in that breathless raid in Pakistan. Boal and Bigelow attack the story from all angles - we see the war on terror as fought from the halls of Washington D.C. to the deserts of Afghanistan to the streets of London to the villages of Pakistan. We see the techies, the suits, the muscle, the soldiers, the SEALS, the moles, the spies, and everyone in between. This is sprawling, epic storytelling. But it's also of-the-moment and journalistic. The movie leaves a lot unsaid, but everything is in there - sometimes between the lines, sometimes on the expression of a character's face.

As for the debate on the movie's depiction of torture - to me, it's a non-issue. Some in government are criticizing the movie for implying that torture led in some way to the discovery of Bin Laden's location. In my view, the movie keeps things open for interpretation, and also goes to great pains to show that torture alone does not tend to yield actionable results. In fact, two of the key pieces of intel that propel Maya's hunt  forward come from bribes, not torture. That said, I also think it's silly and naive to act as if torture never works as a means of extracting information. Do I support it in most instances? No. But I'm also not going to claim that it can't ever be effective. In any case, ZERO DARK THIRTY handles the issue deftly - showing the emotional toll the practice takes on those who utilize it, and those who condone it as accomplices. It also shows torture in a brutal manner that makes us see it for what it is. There's no fantasy-revenge element in the torture scenes (as you might find in more over-the-top fare like "24"). It's brutal to the point that we sympathize with some of the victims, and hope for them to divulge information and be cooperative so as not to put themselves through such cruelty.

This is a movie that smartly opens up the debate on torture, on national security, on counterterrorism, on foreign policy - but not in a biased or judgmental manner. Instead, it looks at the cost that the war on terror had and has on the lives of the people in the trenches, and on the national psyche over the course of the decade since 9/11. This is a movie that shows us the world as it was and is. It's exciting, riveting, intense-as-hell ... but it also hits at a level of truth that few movies do, combining the thoroughness and intelligence of a great magazine expose with the drama, intrigue, emotion, and action of a great cinematic thriller.

Kathryn Bigelow is on fire right now, making the best, hardest-hitting real-world dramas in the biz. ZERO DARK THIRTY is a gut-punch of a film - a must-see nail-biter and conversation-starter - bad-ass, thought-provoking, smart, and poignant. A highlight of 2012.

My Grade: A