Sawyer survives thanks to a pocket watch once belonging to Abraham Lincoln that stopped Walker's bullet. Emily runs outside and waves off the incoming fighter planes with a presidential flag, calling off the air strike. Before Walker can finally launch the missiles from the USS Albuquerque, Cale crashes a reinforced Chevrolet Suburban into the Oval Office and kills him with the car's rotary cannon. Sawyer attacks Walker, but in the fight Walker uses Sawyer's handprint to activate the football and shoots Sawyer, much to Emily's fury.
Killing most of the mercenaries and freeing the hostages with the help of tour guide Donnie Donaldson, Cale fights against Stenz and blows him up with a grenade belt. Tyler inadvertently triggers the tunnel explosives and is vaporized. Sawyer refuses, while Cale sets fire to several rooms as a diversion.
Walker, blaming Iran rather than Sawyer for Kevin's death, demands Sawyer use the football to launch nuclear missiles against various Iranian cities. Raphelson is sworn in as president and orders an air strike on the White House. Hacking into NORAD, Tyler launches a missile at Air Force One from Piketon, Ohio, killing Hammond and everyone on board. Learning Emily's identity from the video, Stenz takes her to Walker in the Oval Office. Cale and Sawyer, still alive, learn Hammond has ordered an aerial incursion to re-acquire the White House, but the mercenaries shoot down the helicopters. With Sawyer and Cale presumed dead in an explosion in the cabana, the 25th amendment is invoked Hammond is sworn in as president. They escape in the presidential limo but are chased by Stenz and fall into the White House pool. Cale and Sawyer try to escape via a secret tunnel, but find the exit rigged with explosives. Cale and Sawyer contact the command structure via a scrambled satellite phone in the residence, whereas Finnerty uses Emily's YouTube video to discover the mercenaries' identities. Killick catches Emily filming the intruders on her phone and takes her hostage. Walker brings in ex- NSA analyst Skip Tyler to hack the PEOC's defense system, but requires Sawyer to activate the nuclear football. Cale kills a mercenary, taking his weapon and radio, and rescues Sawyer after overhearing Walker. Inside, Walker kills Sawyer's detail, including fellow agent Ted Hope, revealing himself as the leader of the attack, apparently seeking vengeance against Sawyer for his Marine son, Kevin Walker, who was killed in a botched mission in Iran the year prior. Retiring Head of the Presidential Detail Special Agent-in-Charge Martin Walker brings Sawyer to the PEOC beneath the White House Library. The tour group is taken hostage in the Blue Room by white nationalist Carl Killick, but Cale escapes to search for Emily, separated during the tour. A team of mercenaries led by ex- Delta Force operative Emil Stenz infiltrate the White House and overwhelm the Secret Service, seizing the building. Finnerty escorts Raphelson to an underground command center in the Pentagon, while Vice President Alvin Hammond is taken aboard Air Force One. Meanwhile, a bomb is detonated in the United States Capitol, collapsing the rotunda and sending Washington, D.C. His interviewer, Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge Carol Finnerty, a college acquaintance, deems him unqualified for the job. Cale hopes to impress his daughter Emily by interviewing for the Secret Service Presidential Detail, getting tickets for them to tour the White House. Divorced veteran John Cale works as a Capitol Police officer assigned to Speaker of the House Eli Raphelson, whose nephew, Corporal Dawson, he saved while serving in Afghanistan. President James Sawyer makes a controversial proposal to remove military forces from the Middle East. White House Down was one of two films released in 2013 that dealt with a terrorist attack on the White House the other, Olympus Has Fallen, was released three months earlier. The film was a box office bomb, grossing over $205 million worldwide against a budget of $150 million. Released on Jby Sony Pictures, White House Down received mixed reviews from critics toward the screenwriting and the clichéd storyline, although the performances and action sequences were praised. The film stars Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Joey King, Jason Clarke, Richard Jenkins, Michael Murphy and James Woods. In the film, a divorced US Capitol Police officer named John Cale attempts to rescue both his daughter Emily and the President of the United States James Sawyer when a massively destructive terrorist assault occurs in the White House. White House Down is a 2013 American action thriller film directed by Roland Emmerich and written by James Vanderbilt.