He is essentially Dirty Harry, snapping bones, delighting in the abuse of suspects, and generally employing methods not fit for a democracy.
![white house down similar movies white house down similar movies](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91EQaASQneL._SX342_.jpg)
The underlying absurdity of Above the Law’s politics lies in the means by which Seagal emerges victorious. Seagal eventually dispatches all of the villains and gives a speech about the danger of empire and the virtues of republican government.Īn action flick with liberal leanings has limited resources with which to take out the bad guys. Unfortunately, these problems have followed him home. Seagal plays a Chicago police detective who grows disillusioned with the torture, drug-running, and preference for right-wing dictatorship he witnessed in Vietnam. Steven Seagal’s first vehicle, Above the Law (1988), is-on the surface-a left-wing attack on American arrogance. The ridiculous set-up is one thing, but the real problem with White House Down is its execution: Left-wing action films can never sustain the courage of their convictions.Īmerican cop or military movies, from Dirty Harry to Rambo, tend to be right-wing: nationalistic, scornful of the rights of criminals, and disdainful of politicians and bureaucracy. Meanwhile, the vice president, safely on Air Force One, ponders a response in consultation with the military. Their goal is to save Tatum’s daughter from the thugs, and humanity from World War III. (The Die Hard echoes extend to Tatum’s wife beater and an action scene with helicopters on the roof of the White House.) After the Secret Service is neutralized, Foxx manages to escape, and he and Tatum join forces. Meanwhile, a Capitol Police officer, played by Channing Tatum, happens to be on a White House tour with his daughter on the day of the attack. (You’d think the military industrial complex could have saved time by simply fixing the election for a more warmongering president, but never mind.) (I won’t spoil the precise plan here.) The villains are backed and financed by “the military industrial complex”-as it’s explicitly named in the movie-which has infected all branches of the government, minus the liberal president.
![white house down similar movies white house down similar movies](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/db/4f/24/db4f2479c8f2339ba7d269fb9662ef4d.jpg)
These men employ a computer hacker to access nuclear codes and attempt to launch a pre-emptive strike against our dastardly foes in the Middle East. With the money he has saved by ending overseas military commitments, he can alleviate poverty-his real passion-here and in the Islamic world, while simultaneously removing the actual reason that the terrorists hate us (our occupation of their countries).Īlas, before the plan has a chance to go into effect, right-wing thugs take over the White House with help from certain rogue members of the Secret Service. He plans to pull all American troops out of the Middle East and sign a comprehensive peace agreement with the Iranian government.
![white house down similar movies white house down similar movies](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/vrtUvXgto6KiM6jJoEFlDU7xNkA=/1400x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19732153/CriminalMinds_KeyArt_1920x1080.jpg)
The plot is as follows: President James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx) is a middle-aged first-termer on the cusp of the biggest foreign policy breakthrough since the end of the cold war. The film is thus an interesting comment on how the cinema of terror has shifted in the past decade it is impossible to imagine a $150 million 4th of July blockbuster with these politics being made in the years immediately after September 11. leaks, but it manages to capture the zeitgeist: the movie is more concerned with civil liberties than foreign threats the danger is the vaguely Tea Party-esque enemy within our own borders.
![white house down similar movies white house down similar movies](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/WfaTlmYvTA8/maxresdefault.jpg)
It was filmed before Edward Snowden and the N.S.A. But what it actually resembles is a season of “24” as if re-written and reconceived by Noam Chomsky or Oliver Stone. White House Down, the enjoyably terrible Roland Emmerich flick released today, sounds like the title of a Clinton-era porn parody.