Every week at SiftPop.com, we challenge our writers to come up with their favorite answer to a movie-related prompt tied to a recent release. This week, with Nick Offerman’s Civil War character in mind, we’re discussing some of our favorite movie presidents! Let us know your favorites @SiftPop!
We’ve had a long line of former military personnel take up the mantle of President of the United States. Despite this eclectic group of men having backgrounds in all branches of the armed services, and winning countless medals and honors, by the time they made it into office, there were few, if any, who could hold their own in an actual fight. Air Force One’s President James Marshall (Harrison Ford) puts them all to shame. Not only is he ruggedly handsome and charismatic, but as a former helicopter rescue pilot and veteran of the Vietnam War, he knows how to keep calm and carry on when Air Force One is taken hostage by neo-Soviet loyalists. To call President Marshall a badass is a bit of an understatement. After he refuses to take an escape pod to safety, he plots to retake his plane and rescue those aboard. His cunning, bravery, and dogged determination to save his family and the others aboard, know no bounds. And has any President ever said anything even half as cool as “GET OFF MY PLANE!” while tossing a terrorist out a cargo bay door? (Patrice Downing)
10 years before the United States had a Black president in real life, we had Morgan Freeman’s President Beck in Deep Impact. Sheldon Cooper even suggested they might have taken the idea from this film. Disaster films are always a great test of character for the people in charge, because you can do nothing except try to preserve as many lives as possible. Not to mention, this is a disaster film that doesn’t have a completely happy ending. During the film, Beck has to explain to the country that a comet the size of New York is coming, that they have failed to stop it and many will die, and what they plan to do to rebuild after the impact. He delivers some incredibly harrowing information in the calmest and brutally honest manner. He doesn’t try to humor anyone, give them false hope, or claim they did everything they could to stop the comet; he delivers the facts of the situation. Freeman’s delivery is incredible in a way that shows authority but gives a real sense of dread about what will happen. (John Tillyard)
Eddie Murphy, eat your heart out! Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb illustrated that illustrious director Stanley Kubrick could deftly execute sharp, witty satire in addition to his known dynamic filmmaking skills, and Peter Sellers was instrumental to the movie’s success, as he tackled three roles. In addition to playing the title character and Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, Sellers provided some of the film’s funniest moments as President Merkin Muffley, which incidentally could contend in a poll for funniest fictional presidential names. The best line of the movie comes from President Muffley as he yells over a room of bickering men, “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!” Watching Muffley try and fail to do damage control for an increasingly doomed situation is poetry in motion. He’s certainly not the fictional president you would most want in office, but he is the one you want to watch time and time again. (Jason Mack)
Is Idiocracy funnier now because how accurate it feels? Or is it less funny because it is uncomfortably accurate? Either way… we are starting to live it. Mike Judge created a wild and hilariously dumb future that could be usurped by an average Joe like Luke Wilson’s character. But one of the wildest elements is the fact that a pro wrestler like Terry Crews’ Camacho has become president. He is big-muscled and flashy in all the crazy fun entertaining ways. But should he be leading a whole country? Hell no! Crews is so committed, though, to making this crazy and idiotic meathead come to life. In a world where Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson might run for president someday, and a man whose most successful venture was a reality TV show actually became president, this future seems really likely. We just might end up with our own President Camacho… which will probably be less fun and entertaining in real life. (Shane Conto)
When President Thomas J. Whitmore addresses the troops in Independence Day, he delivers the most patriotically arousing speech in the history of cinema, nay, mankind. Astonishingly, it’s a scene that was written in only five minutes and deliberately includes the title of the film at the end to thwart a studio attempt to change the name to Doomsday. Please allow his words to invade your heart: “Good Morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. Mankind — that word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can’t be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps its fate that today is the Fourth of July. And you will once again be fighting for our freedom. Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution, but from annihilation. We’re fighting for our right to live, to exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice: ‘We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive! Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!’” If your response to that speech was anything but an emphatic salute, as was delivered by the most enthusiastic extra in the scene, then you have no soul. (Jonathan Fedee)
If you could pick any actor to be president during an alien invasion, Jack Nicholson is at the top of my list. Between his gruff demeanor and crazy smile, Nicholson has what it takes to be a great president. Unfortunately for him, though, his turn as president has disastrous results. In Mars Attacks!, Nicholson’s James Dale has to deal with a hostile Martian attack, which he is ill-equipped to deal with. In his defense, so is all of humanity. His costly mistake of assuming that the Martians come in peace leads to countless people being killed — including Congress, and himself of all people. Resorting to peaceful tactics first is what I admire most about Dale, and trying diplomacy and nonviolent means of problem solving should be a first recourse of the president. Where Dale loses points is in not learning from his mistakes, and that ultimately dooms humanity. His daughter, Taffy (Natalie Portman), is left to rebuild after the catastrophe, but Dale’s legacy will forever be bumbling the alien invasion. Mars Attacks! is a delightfully fun movie with a stacked cast and brilliant direction from Tim Burton. It’s one of the most unique alien invasion movies, and the creature designs and effects are out of this world! (Mike Hilty)
If you’re asking me to choose between the two White-House-is-under-attack movies of 2013, one film, and subsequently one president, gets my vote. Olympus Has Fallen gives you everything you want from the premise: Badass fights between government agents and terrorists seeking to take over the president’s residence. It’s got sweet action, it’s got double-crosses, and to give you just enough heart, it’s got a main trio with interconnected relationships that gets you invested enough to care about said action. President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhardt) is the key to all of it. Not only is he who our protagonist, former Secret Service Agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) and our John McClane stand-in, has to save as part of his redemption arc, but we also care about the relationship with his son. There’s nothing necessarily groundbreaking here about said relationships, but it plays to the formula with great success. I get enough to know that Asher is a president I can get behind. And if we’re talking the 2013 Presidential Cinematic Election? It’s Asher in a landslide. (Jake Bourgeois)