WHITE HOUSE DOWN

Cast: Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx, James Woods
Director: Roland Emmerich
Running time: 137 mins.

"White House Down" is the second film in which director Roland Emmerich has demolished the US President's gaff, following the same guns and bangs commotion as the earlier similar "Olympus Has Fallen". Subtlety has never been Emmerich’s strong point, and in this, his latest enterprise, he has added multiple cringe and gasp injections – with ‘tire’ replacing ‘awe’ as prefix to ‘some’. "White House Down" is utterly preposterous and not a little offensive in the process.

‘Dirty Vest Action Man’ this time out is Channing Tatum, who plays John Cale, an ex-army-veteran who harbours a desire to become a secret service right hand man to the Commander-in-Chief (can you guess what’s going to happen?) So on a day trip to the White House with his daughter, Emily (Joey King) all hell breaks loose. Suddenly - the SS main man Walker (James Woods) opens up the havoc. In the ensuing chaos, Cale and his precocious offspring are split up, and President Sawyer (Jamie Foxx) is taken hostage. Inevitably the entire security system collapses and, as you’ve no doubt predicted, it falls to Cale to get his wannabe boss, his own daughter, and all the other hostages to safety.

Emmerich squashes in as many clichés and as much nonsense as possible – as events become more ridiculous by the minute. It would be easy to dismiss all this tripe as lowbrow tosh, but certain sections of the film are peculiarly inappropriate at this time. For example, Emmerich’s insensitivity is evident where he sees nothing untoward about threatening schoolchildren with guns, considering certain traumatic occurrences in the USA. This really is inexcusable.

The ludicrous and incorrect faux patriotism however reaches an all-time nadir/zenith with the character of Cale's daughter. We’re reliably informed that she did a flag-waving routine for the school talent show. Not only that, she's a fully-sussed media associate. While hiding from the terrorists, she fully documents the siege and films the baddies involved with her phone (sneaked in past one of the tightest security systems known), and also has the presence of mind to send it off in her "video blog" - which in an inkling is picked up by all tv channels and shown worldwide.

Last, but not least - do please hang on for her climactic bravado encore. She successfully escapes the rubble of the White House (Down by now, of course) and does a turn on the lawn (relative to her school talent gig) - which is so grotesque in its schmaltz, every cinemagoer will uniformly groan in disgust.
ABOUT TIME

Cast: Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy, Lindsay Duncan, Tom Hollander, Margot Robbie

Director: Richard Curtis

Running time: 123 mins

Fluffy, sentimental, lovey-dovey, upper middle class, no money worries, London-based single guy meets American girl plus, but of course, Bill Nighy. These elements form the basic ingredient mix for Richard Curtis’ apparently final excursion in the director's chair - “About Time”. His last hurrah, however, is a warm and reassuringly engaging project, offering a glimpse of time travel, focussing on the true values of love and family.

The film finds Curtis working with Harry Potter’s Domnhall Gleeson playing ginger Tim, a charmingly clumsy early 20s trainee lawyer who muddles through his head-over-heels calamity chat up with Rachel McAdams’ Mary, as they geek together at a Kate Moss photo exhibition. In the background to all of this, is Tim’s sunny-disposition family, based in Cornwall and offering a sparkling array of eccentrics in a wholesome UK devoid of anything resembling recession.

Here, our protagonist has a heart-to-heart with his early-retired Dad (Bill Nighy) who reveals to his son that he (Tim) now has the male-only attribute for time travel. This odd ability is never fully investigated nor explained, but what the hell, this is Curtisworld where reality is always one step removed from itself. Thrilled by his new-found skill, Tim embarks upon a love quest and after a couple of false starts, he hones in on fringe-sporting, face furniture-displaying Mary after a blind date in a similarly adjectivised restaurant. He uses his new-found skills in an amusing second and third sexual encounter scene with hooked Mary, improving upon his lothario expertise on each occasion to impress his worth upon his new love.
About Time it has to be said, is a charming, sweet and pleasing couple of hours. It would be far too cheap and easy to pick holes in the scenario – better just to relax and enjoy the feature.

(Hugh) Granted it is a hugely sentimentalised confection not without some mis-steps, but Gleeson does a fine job in the lead role as the new aforementioned HG on the block, Tom Hollander is a hoot as the irascible playwright, there is the poignant pleasure of seeing the immense (in more ways than the obvious) Richard Griffiths in, alas, his final screen role (reunited one last time with fellow Withnail & I colleague Richard E. Grant) – and of course the effortless and delightful Bill Nighy who is never anything less than good value.

All the aforementioned, plus a lovely turn from Rachel McAdams would, in an ideal world, be enough to relax even the most hardened of critics - and surely that's about time. (Ouch).