As you know, being President is totes difficult. You have to be knowledgeable about foreign policy, pass/veto bills that you know are going to piss off constituents in the opposing political party, and master the art of having a stank face that is professional a.k.a. somewhere between Tommy Lee Jones at the Golden Globes and McKayla Maroney at the 2012 London Olympics. Clearly, this gig ain’t too low-stakes for a movie, but Hollywood thinks otherwise, which is why we have the second “hide yo kids, hide yo wife, cuz the White House is getting is blown the hell up” movie of 2013 in the new Jamie Foxx/Channing Tatum action movie White House Down, which opens nationwide today:
So now seems like as good of time as any to take a look back on the most badass presidential movies of all time:
*__Independence Day__*Seriously, I don’t know one human being who was not into this movie when it came out in 1994. Bill Pullman as President (I’d hit it), Will Smith, fresh off *Fresh Prince of Bel-Air* fame, punching aliens in the face (I’d have to get in line to hit it), and Vivica A. Fox was a classy exotic dancer (I don’t go that way, but her and I would definitely be Facebook friends). In short, this movie was pretty much the perfect action flick. Just check out this rousing speech from President Whitmore:
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Not only does he deliver this inspiring speech, but then he later gets in a fighter jet and helps saves the planet from the aliens. Best. President. Ever.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
My favorite thing about this movie, which is based on the popular 2011 novel, is that it was probably created by someone who thought, Lincoln emancipated the slaves…BORING! I wanna see him chopping up vampires the way I dice garlic and put it in pesto.
OK, sure, it’s all a little silly (seriously, when does he sleep if he’s President during the day and slaying vamps at night?), but it’s fun to see one of history’s most stoic-looking prezzies cutting loose and kicking ass.
*__Olympus Has Fallen__*
This 2013 movie is basically *White House Down* if the President was white and got kidnapped. Aaron Eckhart is the Prez, [Gerard Butler](/about/gerard-butler) is the standard-issue hero who will save the day, [Angela Bassett](/about/angela-bassett) is working a variation of the [Halle Berry](/about/halle-berry) ’90s pixie cut, and Morgan Freeman, who plays the Speaker of the House, becomes the acting President when everything goes to crap:
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C’mon! How can you not like anything in which Freeman says with such gravitas, “Open the gates of hell?”
Escape From New York
OK, so this trailer does a horrible job of telling you what the movie is about other than that Kurt Russell’s chesticles will be on display:
The plot is this: Manhattan’s a giant police state, and when the President visits there, he gets captured by some evil dudes, and Snake (Russell), who was a convicted bank robber, has to go in and rescue him. Yeah, it’s best if you don’t ask any questions and just enjoy how “scientific” 1997 is supposed to be, how cheesy the action scenes are, and how John Carpenter really wants you to know that this is his mother-bleepin’ movie. Jeez, I thought Tyler Perry was annoying with the way he inserts his name into everything.
*__In the Line of Fire__*
Yes, [Clint Eastwood](/about/clint-eastwood) is probably too damn old to be saving the day in this movie, but that shouldn’t matter. Seeing him face off against John Malkovich is a delight:
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xXx: State of the Union
Um, yeah, so normally I’d like to pretend Ice Cube’s whole experiment with trying to be an action-movie hero didn’t exist, but Vin Diesel was not available for this movie, so we’re stuck with the Cubester:
And actually, it’s not half bad. Sure, it’s a little paint-by-the-numbers, but Samuel L. Jackson is awesome, and Willem Dafoe is creepy as per usual. What more do you want?
*__Air Force One__*
Obviously, this is the BEST presidential action movie. It has everything that we love: evil Russians, an extremely scary scenario, violence, and the best Prez send-off in cinema history:
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What are your favorite presidential action movies? Will you be checking out White House Down this weekend?
