This review is of the edited TV-14 version. All thoughts below should be addressed as such and a review of the unedited version would likely be a lot harsher.

Time to look at a film which is in a tricky genre. I’ve seen a film or two like this before where it’s essentially about terrorists and what would happen when they take an area over. It’s not a genre that I’m crazy about because it usually revolves around all of the good guys looking like rank amateurs while the terrorists can suddenly shoot as well as Ann Oakley. Unfortunately, America looks even worse than I had feared and it does certainly hurt this film. The movie had potential, but you simply do not mess with the USA!

It’s an average day in the White House when terrorists storm the lawn. They had a guy on the inside who handled all of the “professional” agents around the President. Meanwhile, America must have been sleeping on the job because we only have 2 planes near the White House and they were both wrecked by the villain’s ship. One plane took down 2 and the terrorist plane was really large and clunky. America also had the better position since we were flanking both sides, but decided not to do anything. We didn’t have much protection or backup nearby either so the White House fell in 13 minutes. It’s up to one ex secret service member to take back the White House!

If you’ve seen one Terrorist film, then you’ve seen them all. By that, I mean that you can easily predict exactly what is about to happen before it ever occurs. The villain starts to kill off everyone one by one and they are forced to think about complying with the terrorist demands. Scratch that, they do comply with the demands and America looks really bad the entire time. Whyyyyyyyyyyy? I like to think that it’s just because the other countries want to see America looking weak as an ego boost. In the real world, we typically end wars as soon as they begin so this is their way to laugh it up a little. How these movies make it into theaters when they are essentially anti war propaganda against the US is beyond me.

Let’s quickly look at why America looked so bad. For starters, let’s go back to the plane scene. The heroes keep telling the mysterious plane to turn back or they will fire. They wait until the other plane is essentially within firing range and the terrorists quickly start shooting. The planes are so shocked that they go down almost instantly. It’s one of those facepalm moments. Another wince worthy scene is when random joes throw smoke bombs onto the lawn and quickly storm it. The pros can’t hit them so they are quickly overwhelmed and it’ll make you want to turn the film off for a few minutes to go make dinner or take a walk to forget about how sad that was.

Finally, The President decides to invite the Korean ambassador into the safe room during the terrorist attack. It’s really fishy that the attack happened during the visit right? Why on Earth would the President do this? Being nice is one thing, but his agents would never allow that to happen. It’s extremely plot convenient though and all of the President’s right hand men and women are there with him so now the villains can get everyone all at once. What a plan!

Oh boy, that was enough to drive me out of the film. It’s also just not fun to see the terrorists having their way with the heroes the whole time. Why give them ideas in the real world? These plans would certainly not work, but just making them look smart and tough isn’t a good thing. Making them look unsure of what to do and constantly on the defensive would have been more satisfying.

Even ignoring how America looked, the film is fairly generic. It plays out exactly how you would expect. The terrorists start killing the hostages one by one until the hero can get there and he manages to save a few of them before saving the President. Scratch that, just about all of them ended up getting blown up in one of the big twists so the body count is quite high. The main character ends up destroying the villains on his one man killing spree as he proves that he is stronger than the rest of the White House staff put together.

On the bright side, Mike Banning is a good character and easily the best part of the film. He had to make a tough decision at the beginning of the film, but he didn’t freeze up and you can’t fault him for what he did. He did what he could and would have saved everyone if he had the time. Once the White House was in trouble, he selflessly jumped into the White House to take out all of the terrorists. He really knows his way around the place to the point where I’d say that you have to suspend some disbelief, but he gets the job done. Mike Banning essentially symbolizes the ultimate American who is always ready to fight and won’t back down at any point.

Mike Banning doesn’t have much of a personality, but being an American basically is his personality. If the other guards had done as well as him, the film would have been finished a lot sooner. Even watching the pilots just stare at the giant cannon on the White House as it shot them down was just terrible. None of the other characters have much of a role except to panic or be destroyed. The film did give us a red herring as the President is shown to be practicing his boxing skills, but we never get to see him fight in the actual film. I would say that it was clever except that it’s just another way to make America look bad so I’m going to pass on that.

This film is fairly intense and violent, but you likely knew that going in. That being said, it’s not as intense as other films in this kind of genre and mostly you just need to remember that the characters are living out a Call of Duty game. It’s just like one of those titles as there are many headshots from both sides as well as the unassuming knife jabs. If you don’t like violence then you should probably stay away and the main character does have to resort intimidation, but I never said that he was a hero right? It’s a war and he goes all out on the opponents. It would be hard not to destroy everyone in this situation, but that’s the difference between a human fighting to save lives and a super hero. They go through the tough situations while still coming out scott clean because it’s what they do.

On the bright side, the pacing for the film is good. Something is always happening so there’s never a dull moment. Mike essentially starts his journey from the entrance of the White House all the way to the end through the movie. I forgot exactly how long it is, but you won’t really worry about the duration while you’re watching. The writing was also fairly decent although the traitor’s dialogue was not handled well and I didn’t buy his last second change of heart either. The whole scene just didn’t make any real sense.

Overall, This film is similar to Red Dawn in the sense that America looks bad and I’d say that it’s even worse because terrorists are behind the attack as opposed to another country. It does make a difference because the terrorists are simply given too much credit. It’s nice to see us mount a comeback at the end, but it doesn’t change the fact that they essentially destroyed all of our current government members during the process. There’s also a sequel on the way, which is likely going to make America look terrible once again. Less so since it isn’t on American soil, but shouldn’t someone find it a little strange that everyone will be in one place? There’s a reason why we have internet and such nowadays, it’s so all of the figure heads won’t have to meet up in one place. It’s not a parody like Sharknado so I guess we’ll just have to see how it ends up. I’m assuming that White House Down will be better as I thought that the trailer was good, but to an extent, I’m sure that it’ll be dicey. If you want to see a gritty action film where the main character goes around shooting everyone, I’d recommend Red. It would be more up your alley and it can basically match this film’s action scenes and holds up better in the other areas. Unless you’re waiting for the Call of Duty movie and want to see this one adapt the games (Because it is practically an adaption) this film just loses out to its rivals.

Overall 3/10