It’s officially best buddy weekend at the movies. You can either be BFF’s with the President or a foul-mouth Boston cop. You decide. This week, we get to see the White House being attacked and the it’s up to one man to rescue the President. Oh, have you seen that before? Well, sure there was Olympus has Fallen, but this time there’s 100% more Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx. Be careful about saying that’s a good thing, our friendship is relying on it. The other movie is Paul Feig’s follow-up to 2011’s Bridesmaids. It’s a buddy cop movie akin to The Other Guys…but with women. So it’s basically The Other Girls.
White House Down
Director Roland Emmerich should be on an NSA watch list. Not only is this man guilty of directing abominations like Godzilla, 10,000 BC and The Day After Tomorrow but he has also destroyed the White House in at least 3 of his movies: White House Down, Independence Day and 2012. I’m not pointing fingers (I am), but he has a strange fixation with the destruction of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
In White House Down, Jamie Foxx plays an Obama-esque President. He is a very popular guy making very controversial decisions. On the fateful day when the White House is taken, Channing Tatum is interviewing for a job to be on the President’s Secret Service. His estranged 11 year old daughter, who is a political junkie, has come along for the prestigious White House tour. In the middle of the tour, the White House is attacked and every agent is wiped out. All except for the wanna-be agent Tatum. Once he reaches the President, the two of them play cat-and-mouse with the terrorists.
Okay, I’m going to be upfront with you. This movie made me laugh so hard that I cried.
You should know that there is very little intentional comedy involved. In fact, it is completely unintentional comedy. The writing is so bad! The plot twists are so horrendous! The acting is so atrocious!
Roland Emmerich has truly outdone himself. I’m going so far as to say that he’s outdone Michael Bay.
I wish I brought a notepad to this movie because I’d hear a line and start laughing and tell myself to remember that. I hope you start laughing too when you hear Maggie Gyllenhaal sadly state, “I spent Thanksgiving every year with his family.” Or the terrorists say, “You just killed the Secretary of Defense!” “He was bad at his job.”
I understand that movies like this can be political, but this one was so heavy-handed it gives Fern Gully a run for its money. Watching White House Down I learned several important lessons like: Corporations are evil, Redneck Racists are terrorists, Obama is Superman, Republicans commit treason and so on. This movie couldn’t be more slanted.
Also, I love that an 8 minute countdown actually takes 40 minutes to get to zero. Speaking of time, this flick is 2 hrs 20 minutes. Are you kidding me!?! I was going out of my mind with insanity! I almost didn’t want the laughter to end.
This is the 2nd worst movie of the year and I believe it will hold that spot. You know what it really should be categorized as? So bad it’s good. I walked out with the biggest smile on my face and not because I was pleased. It’s more like watching a bus crash and you can’t look away because fireworks are shooting out of it.
If you have ever professed to love Film, please don’t see this movie. Let it bomb. Only watch this when Riff Trax puts out a commentary. Side note: In the battle of the White House destruction movies I am happy to say that Olympus Has Fallen clearly wipes the floor with this. So so bad.
The Heat
Melissa McCarthy is riding a wave of success right now. Since her breakthrough role in Bridesmaids, she has gone on to be a scene-stealer in several movies. Identity Thief may have been terrible, but can you imagine how much worse it would have been without her? Director Paul Feig knows to strike when the iron is hot and places McCarthy as the co-lead alongside Sandra Bullock.
Special Agent Ashburn (Bullock) is a rising star in the FBI offices in New York. The problem is, no one likes her. She is incredibly smug and anal-retentive. As she begs for a promotion, her superior tests her by giving her an assignment to bring down a drug trafficker in Boston. It’s there she meets Detective Mullins (McCarthy), a crass, Dirty Harry type cop who intimidates everyone around her. They somehow band together to work their way busting low-level dealers all the way up to the drug kingpin.
Basically it’s a cop movie where you won’t care about the plot minutes after you leave the theater. You are seeing this type of movie to see the chemistry between the two leads. And they absolutely have chemistry.
You can’t help but feel bad for Bullock’s character. She’s meant to be forever alone. Even the cat she cuddles with doesn’t belong to her. She couldn’t be a cat lady if she wanted to. McCarthy’s character, on the other hand, is a very wanted woman, as evidenced by seemingly random strangers on the street asking why she never called after their special night. She has a dirty mouth as well, almost as if Tarantino wrote her lines. Though when you get tired of her language, she can actually be quite clever.
That’s where the real comedy comes in. Even though Bullock seems like the straight character of the two, you relate more to McCarthy dealing with this career-motivated snob. It was refreshing to see Bullock in this kind of role. Feig could have easily cast Kristen Wiig and had built-in chemistry with McCarthy, but Bullock needs some time in the lime-light again.
I couldn’t help but notice that most of the laughs came from women at my screening. Feig is doing a great job at giving women movies that don’t pander to them. Bridesmaids was the feminine response to The Hangover. The Heat is the response to just about every guy cop movie out there.
I actually wish that McCarthy and Bullock were in a different movie, because the story in the Heat doesn’t match the level of quality of the performers. There are dry spots quite frequently, but right when you get impatient, you’re hit with some great gags.
If you’re looking for a “Bro” movie, this may not be it. But if you’re having a girl’s night out or taking your significant other to the movies, this is worth watching. Just makes sure they can handle some crass language. This is the movie to see this weekend.
