Stars Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Rick Yune, Angela Bassett, Finley Jacobson and Dylan McDermott Directed by Antoine Fuqua Just when the Die Hard formula seemed to have worn itself out with the last A Good Day To Die Hard, here comes a fairly decent Die Hard in the White House. Sort of. It's not quite 'wrong place at the wrong time', but it's still one guy against a bunch of terrorists in an enclosed space. Our hero in question is ex-Secret Service agent, Mike Banning (Gerard Butler), who is regulated to a desk job after an unfortunate on-the-job snap decision in protecting President Ben Asher (Aaron Eckhart, moving up from district attorney). When the White House is attacked, the President taken hostage, and the rest of the Secret Service taken out at the same time, Banning manages to fight his way into the White House during the initial firefight… and we have our scenario. This is the first of two movies that put an assault on the White House front and centre, the other being Roland Emmerich's White House Down. It feels like we're back in the late 80s/early 90s when there were duelling movies of similar themes. The implausible scenario is played out here with some gusto and the ultimate plan of the villain is novel, to say the very least. It isn't entirely out of left-field either with subtle hints dropped early on leading to the revelation. Butler does sufficiently well to carry the movie and the action scenes, as does the rest of the cast. The action set-pieces range from thrilling to just being slightly ludicrous, but a majority of the problems lie in the workmanship directing. There isn't anything that really stands out, nothing that sets it part or above the typical action fare aside from the stars in the movie. Although that being said, it's still entertaining and fairly engaging without burning out any brain cells. Then again, it's really down to whether you want to waste some time in the cinema or just wait until it eventually turns up on cable.
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