Photo Credit: Sony Pictures
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If you feel like you’re experiencing a particularly pronounced case of déjà vu while watching White House Down, well, good: that’s exactly what its makers want you to feel. And yes, before I leave you guessing, you’re initial hunch is right: it is nothing more than a rehash of Independence Day and the recent Olympus Has Fallen.

The movie has a certain made-for-TV quality that cheapens what is already a pretty cheap gambit: Jamie Foxx plays the President of the United States (commence eye roll), announcing that he will pull out all troops from the Middle East (this is when you know it’s pure fiction). An insurrection is mounted and the White House is under siege. It’s up to C-grade security dude John Cale (Channing Tatum) to save the President, the White House, and the Free World at Large while he’s at it.

If you like the idea of Die Hard Goes to the White House, then you just might find this movie entertaining. It’s absurd in the extreme, but it’s supposed to be, so don’t dock points from director Rolan Emmerich for showing a POTUS who wields a semi. It’s outlandish for outlandishness’s sake. And only the cool camaraderie between Foxx and Tatum makes it at all palatable.