History YMMV / WhiteHouseDown

*** [[spoiler: Jailed for what though? She wasn't aware of her husband's plans, she didn't help them, all she actually did was defiantly voice her support after Martin assured her it was for her son. It'd probably never hold up in court, especially when she could play the "mother in mourning over fallen soldier" card.]]

* {{Narm}}: The main villain's wife going from against his actions to fully supporting them quickly and with very little reason to do so, if any.

* HilariousInHindsight: This is often considered to be a direct competitor with ''Film/OlympusHasFallen'', due to both movies involving a terrorist attack on the White House. This movie also features a plot involving [[spoiler: the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives planning to assassinate the current President in order to start a war with another country.]] Come ''Film/AngelHasFallen'', the third installment of the ''Has Fallen'' trilogy, which also features a black U.S. President being marked as the target of an assassination by [[spoiler: the Vice President]] and his WesternTerrorists, which they want to blame a foreign adversary for and start a war.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Was Agent Todd's snickering in John's interview really mockery, or was it a SecretTestOfCharacter to see if John had the proper temperament for a Secret Service agent?

* HilariousInHindsight: This is often considered to be a direct competitor with ''Film/OlympusHasFallen'', due to both movies involving a terrorist attack on the White House. This movie also features a plot involving [[spoiler: the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives planning to assassinate the current President in order to start a war with another country.]] Come ''Film/AngelHasFallen'', the third installment of the ''Has Fallen'' trilogy, which also features a black U.S. President being marked as the target of an assassination by the Vice President and his WesternTerrorists, which they want to blame a foreign adversary for and start a war.

* HilariousInHindsight: This is often considered to be a direct competitor with ''Film/OlympusHasFallen'', due to both movies involving a terrorist attack on the White House. This movie also features a plot involving [[spoiler: the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives planning to assassinate the current President in order to start a war with another country.]] Come ''Film/AngelHasFallen'', the third installment of the ''Has Fallen'' trilogy, which also features a black U.S. President being marked as the target of an assassination by the Vice President and his WesternTerrorists, which they want to blame a foreign adversary for and start a war. Both movies also featured the late Creator/LanceReddick.

* HilariousInHindsight: This is often considered to be a direct competitor with ''Film/OlympusHasFallen'', due to both movies involving a terrorist attack on the White House. This movie also features a plot involving [[spoiler: the Vice President planning to assassinate the current President in order to start a war with another country.]] Come ''Film/AngelHasFallen'', the third installment of the ''Has Fallen'' trilogy, which also features a black U.S. President being marked as the target of an assassination by the Vice President and his WesternTerrorists, which they want to blame a foreign adversary for and start a war.

* AcceptableTargets: Creator/RolandEmmerich was arguably playing it as safe as possible. His villains, while "conservative", are not Christians or ordinary middle-class folk, but either violent maniacs who are ''persona non grata'' to all decent people or neocons with whom even staunch Republicans have never been fully comfortable. The accusation that he disrespected soldiers by depicting crazed veterans as the villains' thugs can also be blunted by the observation that the hero also comes from a military background (and that real-life military personnel were offered free theatrical showings of this film as a peace offering). But, of course, this just emphasizes the perception that [[YouAreACreditToYourRace John Cale is "one of the]] ''[[YouAreACreditToYourRace good]]'' [[YouAreACreditToYourRace ones", and thus the exception that proves the rule]].

* TheWoobie: Emily.
** IronWoobie: Poor Emily has gone through ''a lot,'' though there is the implication that the events of this film have set her on the path to the presidency herself.

* HilariousInHindsight: This is often considered to be a direct competitor with ''Film/OlympusHasFallen'', due to both movies involving a terrorist attack on the White House. This movie also features a plot involving [[spoiler: the Vice President planning to assassinate the current President in order to start a war with another country.]] Come ''Film/AngelHasFallen'', the third installment of the ''Has Fallen'' trilogy, which also features a black U.S. President being marked as the target of an assassination by the Vice President and his WesternTerrorists.

** Martin Walker crosses it when he [[spoiler:threatens to [[WouldHurtAChild kill Emily]] if President Sawyer doesn't surrender. Another one is when he plans to destroy the entirety of the Middle East to end the war then and there; killing millions of people, starting ''[[{{Hypocrisy}} another]]'' war, all because his son was killed on faulty orders.]]

* WhatAnIdiot:
** No one in the military thinks of sending a rescue party through the tunnels in spite of the fact that everybody, even civilians on a tour, knows that the tunnels exits.
** So let me get this straight: a video showing the attacking terrorists' faces was uploaded by a pre-teen girl who is obviously trapped in the White House with them, and several news networks decide it's a good idea to repeatedly give away her face and name when there's a chance TV and Internet still works in the building especially considering that there was apparently enough internet for Emily to upload her viral video in the first place?

* SpecialEffectFailure: There's times when you can tell that they really weren't filming at the White House.

** Emily when she meets President Sawyer goes on full fangirly mode and even asks some serious questions about international relationships with other countries in great detail. A telling point- while she ''repeatedly'' insists to her dad that she has a [[Website/YouTube]] account, not a "blog", she doesn't say ''anything'' when President Sawyer makes the same mistake (though that's also likely because, well, ''he's the President.'')

** Emily when she meets President Sawyer goes on full fangirly mode and even asks some serious questions about international relationships with other countries in great detail. A telling point- while she ''repeatedly'' insists to her dad her YouTube account is not a "blog", she doesn't say ''anything'' when President Sawyer makes the same mistake (though that's also likely because, well, ''he's the President.'')

** Emily when she meets President Sawyer goes on full fangirly mode and even asks some serious questions about international relationships with other countries in great detail.

%%** "You'll go to jail for that!"ZCE
%%** "I choose the pen!"ZCE

* HarsherInHindsight: The movie's premise about a group of terrorists storming the White House has become this in light of the attack on the US Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.

* {{Narm}}:
%%** "You'll go to jail for that!"%%ZCE
%%** "I choose the pen!"%%ZCE
** The main villain's wife going from against his actions to fully supporting them quickly and with very little reason to do so, if any.

* HilariousInHindsight: This is often considered to be a direct competitor with ''Film/OlympusHasFallen'', due to both movies involving a terrorist attack on the White House. This movie also features a plot involving [[spoiler: the Vice President planning to assassinate the current President in order to start a war with another country.]] Come ''Film/AngelHasFallen'', the third installment of the ''Fallen'' trilogy, which also features a black U.S. President being marked as the target of an assassination by the Vice President and his WesternTerrorists.

* HarsherInHindsight:
** For both this film and its direct competitor, ''Olympus Has Fallen'', but especially this one given that the villains are mostly [[RightWingMilitiaFanatic right-wing extremists]] engaged in an attempted coup who start out by bombing the United States Capitol building. On January 6, 2021, a group of hundreds of radicalized supporters of President UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump and his false allegations of election fraud, some of them armed, stormed the Capitol during the certification of the electoral vote in a failed attempt to overturn it, forcing the building's evacuation and a delay of the certification by several hours while five people (including a Capitol Police officer) died in the ensuing riot. The comments on the trailers for both this film and ''Olympus Has Fallen'' immediately started jokingly that both films were BasedOnATrueStory. For extra awkwardness, one scene has [[spoiler:the Vice President, a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed version of UsefulNotes/JoeBiden, getting killed -- and the real-life storming of the Capitol was motivated by Biden's victory in the 2020 Presidential election]].
** James Woods was already known to be quite conservative at the time (even playing Rudy Giuliani in a notoriously hagiographic biopic), but shortly after making this film he became infamous for his hardline right-wing politics and support for Donald Trump. [[spoiler:As a result, TheReveal that his character is the BigBad makes the aforementioned similarities to the January 6 riot even more uncomfortable.]]

* {{Narm}} or NarmCharm:
** "You'll go to jail for that!"
** "I choose the pen!"