Loyal Opposition

The 'DIE HARD in the White House' sub-genre of films has recently seen a resurgence in popularity with the double whammy of OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN and WHITE HOUSE DOWN, but LOYAL OPPOSITION: TERROR IN THE WHITE HOUSE got there first some 17 years ago. Unfortunately it's a particularly poor, family-friendly production that plays out just like a television movie, even though it isn't.

The story involves the usual clichéd terrorist attack, with the twist that said attack forces the hand of an elite general to take the president hostage in order to further his own ends and prevent what he sees as global annihilation. Only one person can end the siege, and that's the vice president Joan Van Ark.

Much of this film is ridiculous thanks to the poor choice of protagonist. Van Ark couldn't get much more fake-looking if she tried, and watching her tottering around the corridors of the White House in her high heels and wielding a sub-machine gun is, well, silly. Sadly, for fans of the DIE HARD sub-genre of films, there's little in the way of actual action here, and what action there is is tame indeed.

LOYAL OPPOSITION: TERROR IN THE WHITE HOUSE rounds out its cast with plenty of familiar faces from TV, including Corbin Bernsen (THE DENTIST), Lloyd Bochner, and the ever-typecast Nick Mancuso (UNDER SIEGE 2), the latter chewing the scenery with relish as the villain of the piece. But the film is overlong and underwhelming, and the low budget means it often fails to feel believable. It's not one to waste your time on.

I started to watch this when getting in late from work. I thought the story had merit and hoped it would develop better, however the alarm bells started ringing immediately. The Vice President who talked to herself whilst writing an important speech for the president. The rogue solders who could not shoot the unarmed Vice President at near point blank range. The lead lady showed no emotion even though her son's, who is bonding on a plane with her estranged husband, life is in danger. Then everything she picked up was analysed for some sort of use against the enemy soldiers, she stopped for a few seconds so you, the viewer, could see her thought process as though we were watching Playschool. How could she climb down an elevator shaft with her dress shoes, but wait these shoes are actually very sensible brogues. Also she stormed the most secure bunker in the White House with only a smoke grenade. Really?

I was happy to find a movie that wasn't full of vulgarities, political correctness and indecencies. Trouble is, it was an awful movie in every other respect. Poorly written, acted, directed and everything else.

Very very funny movie. Obviously not meant to be, but if you watch it with this in mind you will have laugh after laugh throughout the movie. It excels in its awfulness but the thought that someone actually put the effort in to create this dire movie is as funny as the script, the direction and the acting. Indeed it must have taken considerable talent to produce such a uniform and consistently appalling movie. I urge anyone to watch it and to enjoy the superlative ludicrousness of an orange vice-president saving the day from a mad general with possibly the most incompetent soldiers ever seen on the small screen. I look forward to such similar dreadful fare next time I am searching for a movie on a Monday afternoon.

This is not a good film. If I'd paid money to see it I would feel cheated. However as a made-for-TV "action" thriller it's a fairly enjoyable romp if you don't take it too seriously. It tries hard to be Air Force One with a bit of Die Hard 2 and Under Siege thrown in, but it fails miserably on it's meagre budget. The film saves on cash by using newsreel footage whenever a touch of realism is called for.

There's the usual group of insane high ranking patriots trying to destroy the world and even an innocent little boy (where would these films be without him?). The main character, a female vice-president, is astonishingly unbelievable in what would normally be a male role. The idea of an attractive female politician single-handedly overcoming a small army of crack troops and CIA-types just doesn't work, I'm sorry.