Movie Review: Live Free or Die Hard

By Evrim Ersoy Jun 28, 2007, 10:05 GMT

Bruce Willis returns as John McClane in the final installment of the blockbuster Die Hard franchise. An attack on the vulnerable United States computer infrastructure begins to shut down the entire nation. The mysterious figure behind the shattering scheme has figured out every digital angle -- but he never figured on an old-fashioned, \'analog\' fly-in-the-ointment: John McClane. ...more

How do you top Die Hard With A Vengeance? Good set pieces, a nasty villain, a brilliant sidekick in the form of Samuel L. Jackson and Bruce Willis on absolutely, positively top form. A winning combination in short. How do you top that?

Well, you don’t. Because if you try to, as Die Hard 4.0 tries to with bombastic set pieces you end up looking both ridiculous and absolutely stupid.

Now reading that you might think that I did not enjoy Die Hard 4.0. After all there has been enough negative publicity generated on the Internet what with the dumbing down of the film to get a PG-13 rating; but you would be wrong.

It is stranger perhaps but Die Hard 4.0 is a perfectly enjoyable film that just falls short of being a real Die Hard movie.

Die Hard 4.0 starts when a criminal plot starts to take down the entire computer and technological structure that supports the economy of the United States and it's up to a decidedly "old school" hero, police detective John McClane, to take down the conspiracy, aided by a young hacker who is unwillingly been used as part of the plot.

Let’s take the good points first of which there are plenty:  Director Len Wiseman proves everyone (including me) wrong and shows that he can do more than just the sub-par directing of the ‘Underworld’ series. His flair for action scenes finally comes through and some of set pieces are wonderful.

Then there’s Bruce Willis, showing that he can still wipe any one of the newcomers off the screen with a nod of his weary face. The man has screen charm and charisma by the bucket loads and when you see him do what he does best, it is hard to argue with the rationale behind the sequel.

Sure he looks older now and a little more worn-down but it all adds up to what we know and love about both Willis and the character McClane.

Next up is Justin Long as the young hacker Matt Farrell. When the news that McClane would have a sidekick filtered through the grapevine, everyone winced a little. Would they ruin the series by adding a wise cracking sidekick in order to make it more accessible?

The worst was feared and yet the result is far better than anyone had the right to expect. Matt Farrell is not irritating nor is he really wise cracking. Justin Long plays him as a guy way out of his league. Most of the time he is merely bewildered by McClane’s antics and the violence that seems to follow them wherever they go. It is to the credit of the script that he never becomes a hindrance and stays just the right side of amusing.

The same thing can be said of Mary Elisabeth Winstead who plays Lucy McClane, John McClane’s daughter. Instead of the usual whiny, damsel in distress, the girl presented here is strong and wily and as tough as her dad. It’s a joy watching her piss off the bad guys time after time simply by doing the unexpected.

Another winner in the film is the fight scenes. The fist fights are beautifully staged and for a PG-13, brutal enough. I found myself wincing at some of the falls as I felt the pain simply watching the film. Add to this a sort of McClane’s old school versus Maggie Q‘s character Mai Lihn’s new school fighting sequence and you wonder why no one else thought of it first.

And yet, the film also fails on quite a few accounts. Take for example Timothy Olyphant as Thomas Gabriel, the mastermind behind the whole scheme. He simply does not have the same nasty, calculated, endearing evilness the other Die Hard bad guys had before him. He might be evil enough but he simply does not have the presence to fill the screen. This obviously allows the film to lose important momentum everytime he is on screen which is a death knoll for an action movie.

Another gripe is the use of one of the main henchman, Cyril Raffaelli as Rand. Although his brief screen time is exciting and filled with stunts, his role simply feels underused and his final fight with John McClane is so short, you feel as if someone stole a reel from the film. Maybe if there is ever an unrated version we might be able to see more.

This brings us to the biggest problem with Die Hard, the set pieces. The sets in this film are so over-the-top and ridiculous that they turn the whole affair into ‘True Lies 2’. On one hand there is attention paid to John McClane's bruising and wounds and then suddenly wham! Fighter jets are all over the place, attacking civilian highways without a care. To compensate for the lack of brutality because of the rating change, it feels like the filmmakers tried to fill the screen with as much razzmatazz as possible.

This however ends up having exactly the opposite effect and allows the audience to lose interest. All the emotional investment and suspense up until these set pieces are effectively ruined.

In order to not ruin the movie, I won’t reveal any more of these pieces except to say that they nearly drowned the movie for me.

So to sum up, Die Hard 4.0 is a mixed bag of goods. It is impossible not to enjoy seeing such a familiar character back on the screen but realizing how much he and the action around him has been tweaked to reach a younger audience leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.

If John McClane is to make any more appearances on the big screen then the producers need to make sure that the material at hand is more suited to the rest of the series.

Opens wide USA, June 29. MPAA: Rated PG 13