White House Down

Redrum...REDRUM!

Grade: C +

Director: Roland Emmerich

Starring: Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx, Maggie Gyllenhaal, James Woods, Jason Clarke, Richard Jenkins, and Joey King

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 2 hr. 11 min.

The rank similarities between White House Down and the Olympus Has Fallen, just released three months ago to tepid reaction, are obvious and regrettable. Both involve terrorist assaults on the presidential residence, kidnapping the Commander in Chief, a turncoat Secret Service agent, attempts to co-opt the nuclear launch codes, and so on.

But White House Down (and Olympus, for that matter) is more like White House Die Hard in more ways than I reasonably have space to delineate. And, that action apogee is only the most overt blueprint for a cheeky thriller that threatens to actual entertain before overstaying its welcome. Along with John McTiernan, director Roland Emmerich also apes Wolfgang Petersen (Air Force One), Michael Bay (The Rock) and Season 7 of 24, not to mention a not-so-casual mention of Emmerich’s own Independence Day—actually, this is now the fourth film in which the German-born director has wrecked the White House. Discuss...

This time around, Capitol cop John Cale (Channing Tatum) is a decorated war hero with a messy personal life hoping to land a job on the President’s Secret Service detail, headed by the retiring Martin Walker (James Woods, his casting alone an obvious bit of foreshadowing). After an unsuccessful interview with old flame (or something) Carol Finnerty (Maggie Gyllenhaal), Cale his precocious daughter Emily (Joey King) get caught mid-tour in an armed takeover of the White House by a band of paramilitary mercenaries aimed at kidnapping President James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx). Of course, it falls to Cale to save the president...the country...the world!

After touring the White House last year, I actually found myself marveling at the meticulous set design. But, it’s the affable byplay between Tatum and Foxx carries the film, which works best when it’s not taking itself too seriously—a car chase around the White House lawn involving the presidential limo is the over-the-top highpoint. Sawyer chomping nervously on some Nicorette gum is a not-so-subtle allusion to President Obama’s cigarette habit. Still, it’s a bit uneasy when the notion of character development is an African-American president gravitating to high-end sneakers, an automatic rifle and a Cadi when things get real—”Get your hands off my Jordans!”, Sawyer yelps at a tenacious terrorist.

Ultimately, one (or a half-dozen) too many implausible and hackneyed twists eventually bring the story an inevitable, wearisome end. The 137-minute running time is at least a half-hour too long, stacking on plot turns that aren’t logical or necessary. Among the bloat are a bevy of supporting characters that do little besides stand around looking inert or saying inept things. And once the gleeful goofiness dissipates, that more than anything brings White House Down down.

Anonymous

Elizabeth: The Olden Age

Grade: C +

Director: Roland Emmerich

Starring: Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, Sebastian Armesto, Rafe Spall, David Thewlis, and Edward Hogg

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 2 hr. 10 min.

The ad tagline for Anonymous – “Was Shakespeare a Fraud?” – conveys both the substance and problem with this campy historical dramatization. Rehashing a decades-old conspiracy over the true author of the works attributed to actor and playwright William Shakespeare, director Roland Emmerich foists a distended viewpoint of the so-called Oxfordians, a vocal minority who argue that Edward de Vere, 17^th Earl of Oxford, wrote the plays and poems attributed to the Bard of Avon.

While Emmerich, the longtime doyen of bombastic end-of-the-world disaster flicks, might seem inapposite to such literary designs, the premise of “Anonymous” is no less absurd than 2012, Independence Day, or The Day After Tomorrow. Emmerich’s implicit contention is that the factual license and tawdry palace intrigue at the heart of this film is no different than the liberties Shakespeare (or whoever) took with historical events for the sake of such seminal dramas as Henry VIII, Richard III, and Julius Caesar. Emmerich establishes his perspective in Anonymous’ opening scene, when Derek Jacobi steps onto a contemporary stage to deliver a prologue as actors busy themselves behind the curtain to launch the rest of the story. [It’s ironic – and a bit sad – to see Jacobi, who owes much of his acting career to the Bard, smear Shakespeare’s name by claiming he never advanced beyond a grade school education and asking, “What if I told you that Shakespeare never wrote a single word?”]

In truth, historical slavishness should not be art’s critique. The problem, of course, is that while Shakespeare regales us with the St. Crispin’s Day speech from Henry V and Marc Antony’s eulogy in Julius Caesar, Emmerich and screenwriter John Orloff (A Mighty Heart) has Edward de Vere (Rhys Ifans) whining that “I’d go mad if I didn’t write down the voices.”

Because of his royal station and proper society’s taboo against writers, de Vere keeps his predilection secret. He also recruits playwright Ben Jonson (Sebastian Armesto) to publish de Vere’s works under Jonson’s name. However, the audience’s exhortation following the debut of Henry V impulsively prompts William Shakespeare (Rafe Spall), a middling actor and cad, to dip his fingers in ink and take a bow. The rest is Emmerich’s version of history.

Emmerich’s branding of Shakespeare as an illiterate commoner not worthy or capable of penning words that could only have been wrought by aristocracy is elitist enough. However, the true transgression of Anonymous is not its shaky verisimilitude but the convoluted vehicle is uses to tell its kitschy tale. Shakespeare’s emergence takes place against the backdrop of a power struggle over the court of Queen Elizabeth I (played in her later years by Vanessa Redgrave). De Vere’s true motivation for revealing his plays to the public is the subtle promotion of Robert Devereux (Sam Reid) as Elizabeth’s would-be successor in lieu of a candidate preferred by the queen’s ministers, William Cecil (David Thewlis) and, after William’s death, his hunchback son Robert (Edward Hogg).

De Vere, whose relationship with Elizabeth figures prominently, is portrayed by three different actors as the film oscillates across as many time periods. There are betrayals, blackmails, intricate plots, illegitimacy, incest and even a bit of bear-baiting for good measure. Monitoring who is friend or foe is difficult enough – keeping track of their machinations proves an exercise in futility.

The costumes and computer-enhanced rendering of 16^th-century London are suitably realistic – the opulence is lavish, and at times you can practically smell the grim. However, Anonymous reaches its zenith during Emmerich’s productions of Shakespeare’s plays – A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo & Juliet, Twelfth Night – using actors that include Royal Shakespeare Company veteran Mark Rylance. These brief glimpses ably capture the beauty and grandeur of Shakespeare in a way that, ironically, makes any debate over his identity feel trivial by comparison. Shakespeare belongs to the ages; Anonymous belongs in a tabloid.

Neil Morris