If you have seen the trailer you will know that this one involves an attack on the White House and how a lone ex-secret service agent (Gerard Butler) becomes all that can save the President and his son. Coincidentally the agent used to work for the President (and was one of his best friends) until one snowy night when the agent had to make a painful choice that cost the First Lady her life.
After a brilliantly planned and choreographed attack on the White House, Butler is one of the few left with a chance to save the day and of course he takes it, because that is the kind of guy he is.
This time our enemies are the North Koreans (the only movie villains that are Kosher these days) and head terrorist Kang (Rick Yun) does well in the 'Hans Gruber' role and is as ruthless and murderous as you would expect from a true believer in his cause.
This movie desperately wants to be Die Hard and does well with it's hero to create a feeling of insane bravery in the face of hopelessness. The body count is also extremely high and violent. This is only the first of two 'Die Hard in the White House' movies this year. In the summer White House Down will be released and I expect more of the same kind of loud noises and heroics that this film has.
The image of a burnt and bloody US flag being tossed off the roof of the White House is there to remind us that America may be down but she is not out, especially when a good Scotsmen like Butler around to save the day. Luckily he knows the White House and it's systems and procedures well enough to be an effective 'fly in the ointment'. I know I much prefer Butler in these kind of films than the week romantic comedies he has done of late.
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7 comments:
I wonder if they thought of the tagline "One Nation, Under Siege", maybe as a Steven Seagal vehicle to restart the Under Siege movies in the same vein as Die Hard did.
We just got home from seeing this tonight. You're not kidding it's violent. The basic plot line is decent but much of the scripted dialogue is eye-rollingly inane. The money obviously went to the special effects guys and not to the screenwriters. Oh well, it had a happy ending and everything got blowed up real good!
And don't forget how the ending made your proud to be an American. I was hoping for a big twist as the end involving Morgan Freeman but that story arc went nowhere. It was exactly the type of movie it wanted to be and only suffers in comparison to something like Die Hard. People forget how revolutionary the idea was at then time but it's been used to death since Die Hard so that 'lone savior' role has become cliched.
Originally I had no intention of seeing this movie, but my brother was an extra in it, so we all went to scan our eyes for him. lol We couldn't find him at all. But my mom was on edge the whole time, and after she came back from the rest room, she said (and I quote) "This movie literally just scared the shit out of me." We don't get out much.
Did your brother die at the beginning or was he one of the killers. Probably just one of the ones who ran away. The shots to the head were pretty jaring to see even for a guy like me who watches movies like this all the time.
He was a civilian in the streets. There was one scene they filmed that was meant to be in NYC and they were going to be looking up in Times Square at a news feed, but that got cut.
There were some moments that were a bit viloent for me, I didn't care for Melissa Leo's character getting beat up like that. I get they were trying to convey her patriotism by not giving anything up, but I thought that was a bit much. But it wasn't an awful movie. Like a lot of people have said though, it is very much a Die Hard in the White House kinda movie.
I hated watching her get beat up too. That was too much. She took more abuse than the President did.
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