Bullet Points: DC Down
When I heard The Asylum produced a movie titled DC Down, I assumed it was a mockbuster released in 2013 to piggyback off Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down.
You know what they say about assuming… I was shocked to find out that DC Down was actually released earlier THIS year as a Tubi Original.
- Shake It Up: It is a big day personally for geologist Katherine Greene (Kayla Fields), but what Katherine doesn’t know as she meets up with her fiancé Lance Cushing (Jeff Pearson) with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is that it is going to be an even bigger day professionally. Before Katherine can share some important news with Lance, a 6.5 earthquake hits Washington D.C. There is destruction everywhere and the even bigger story, President Powell (Sean Young, Model by Day) and Vice President Rachel Jameson (Daphne O’Neal) are trapped under the rubble of the White House!
- Not So Dynamic Duo: Defense Secretary General Harris (Terry Woodberry) springs into action and immediately calls in his main man Lance Cushing, who has search and rescue experience on his resume, which will certainly come in handy. It also doesn’t hurt that Lance has his geologist bride to be Katherine with him armed with several theories on how to counteract what are expected to be even more powerful aftershocks. This is where the movie started to lose me… I was not buying Lance and Katherine as people who were smart enough to save on car insurance, let alone save all of Washington D.C.
- Dreams Come True: Things picked up a bit when Speaker Terry Wilder (Eric Roberts, Best of the Best) showed up, almost with a skip in his step. With the President and Vice President possibly dead, Wilder stresses the importance of the country needing a leader and it isn’t long before he isn’t setting up shop at Camp David and being sworn in as the acting president. It was like a dream come true for him. And it isn’t long before Wilder is making shady phone calls… I was really hoping that we would learn that Wilder somehow caused the earthquake, like he had a Cobra style weather dominator and it was all part of Wilder’s elaborate plot to become the POTUS. Sadly that was not the case, but Wilder did have his own militia at his beck and call, pun intended, because the leader of the militia was named Beck and played by Geoff Meed of The Redemption: Kickboxer 5 and I Am Omega fame.
- Insurance Policy: When it becomes apparent, that there is a chance that Madame President could be rescued, Wilder uses his new found authority to insist that Beck and his militia men be deputized. Wilder sells it as an all hands on deck type situation and while most of the militia help with the rioting and looting that is going on as a result of the earthquake chaos, Beck himself will help with the search and rescue of President Powell. With Wilder’s insistence, Beck even gains access to an underground evacuation corridor that only those with the highest level of security clearance have ever been in. Wilder makes it abundantly clear to Beck… President Powell can not make it out of the rubble alive. Fortunately for Madame President, Secret Service Agent Miguel Diaz (Jesse Tayeh) is competent at his job and smells something rotten in DC as soon as Beck and company show up so he is on high alert and when he gets an opening he takes it. If Diaz was the main protagonist swapping places with Lance, I think I would have enjoyed DC Down a lot more.
- Lube It Up: The more widespread problem is still the powerful aftershocks that are expected. Katherine is able to test out her “lubrication theory” and all it takes is flooding The Blue Line subway system with water from the Potomac River. Is this one of those theories that is just crazy enough to work? Or will it fail like Katherine’s first theory that ended up getting people killed? Will you make it to the end of the movie to find out? And if so, what did Katherine have to tell Lance before the earthquake messed up her big day?
DC Down needed to pick a lane. Was it a disaster movie OR was it a coup d’état movie? To me there would have been enough “meat on the bone” with Washington DC being hit with a massive earthquake and the POTUS and the citizens of DC needing to be saved.
The Wilder storyline felt forced… Was he just waiting for something horrible to happen so he could make his move? What if something horrible never happened? Would he have just gone about his Speaker of the House business and dreamt of being President? Was he always plotting to kill the President? Did he ever consider running for President himself? Am I overthinking this movie?
Last but not least, the balance between good and evil was lopsided. Eric Roberts as the crooked politician was 100% believable. Geoff Meed as the muscle also 100% believable. But the heroes of the movie were incredibly lacking. Sean Young did bring some star power to the good guy side, but it was probably one of her easiest paydays ever since she was just trapped under rubble for most of her screen time, using her shoe to alert the search party that someone was alive under that mess.
No need to go on a search for these Bonus Bullet Points, they are right here…
- Triple Duty: Geoff Meed not only played militia leader Beck, he was also the writer and director of the movie.
- Happy Anniversary: One thing I learned at the start of DC Down is that The Asylum is celebrating its 25th Anniversary this year. Cannon is gone, PM Entertainment is gone… The Asylum keeps chugging along. Life really is unfair.
- Specific Quote: “I think I broke my tibia.”
- Exploding Helicopter: There’s plenty of destruction in DC Down, not only is The White House in shambles, the subway system flooded, there’s also an exploding helicopter and you should see the shape the Washington Monument ends up in!
