White House Down (2013)

Sometimes romantic lead, sometimes teen heartthrob, sometimes dancing sex symbol, sometimes powerhouse dramatic actor, here the versatile Channing Tatum tries his hand at the John McClane role in a Die Hard clone set in a besieged White House, but he is not exactly the centre of attention - there are too many other characters vying unsuccessfully for that, including Jamie Foxx as the POTUS requiring extraction from the hostage situation - and so with your focus divided across myriad players, and further distracted by ill-timed bursts of humour during the high action, you never care what happens but can at least enjoy the audacious sight of the President in his limousine doing doughnuts on the South Lawn while shooting a missile launcher.

★★☆☆☆

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Hostage (2005)

The Die Hard series went on hiatus between 1995 and 2007 once the awful Die Hard With A Vengeance (that dopey one with John McClane playing Simon Says with the Riddler) demonstrated no-one was very sure how to keep the series fresh, so in the downtime Bruce Willis decided to star in this 2005 movie adaptation of a Robert Crais book about a hostage situation in a smaller Nakatomi Plaza - the family home of a rich mob accountant - that needs a John McClane (reluctant hero cop Jeff Talley, upon whom family members' lives depend) and like the Die Hard sequels, it is overthought and nowhere near as good as the original Die Hard.

★★☆☆☆

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