Live Free Or Die Hard

[Sheridan Passell]

Dir: Len Wiseman
Cast: Bruce Willis, Timothy Olyphant, Justin Long, Maggie Q, Kevin Smith

Bruce Willis is back as bald headed eagle-eyed cop John McClane for the fourth (and hopefully last) instalment of a franchise that's now 20 years old. This time he's facing Timothy Olyphant (Girl Next Door, Go) who plans to wipe out America's infrastructure using cyber-terrorism. It's a unique if slightly dated idea, but then much of the film feels like a throwback.

Die Hard 4.0 is actually a very good popcorn action flick, it's just not very good Die Hard. In fact, it could have been called anything else and no one would have noticed. Nothing about it indicated you were watching a film from this series, not even Willis. He didn't have the look or the vibe of McClane, he just felt like, well, Bruce Willis.

The supporting cast didn't do much to help. Gone are the powerhouse performances of Rickman and Irons, replaced with wishy-washy-but-decent-enough Olyphant and his unfortunately more threatening sidekick, Maggie Q (Mission Impossible III). Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Sky High) is poor as McClane's daughter in a storyline that just seemed tacked on to add a pretty face. Surprisingly though, Justin Long (Dodgeball), who plays the geeky hacker Willis is assigned to protect, isn't the nauseating ball of irritation we were all expecting. He actually generates more laughs than Willis.

The numerous fights and explosions all thud and boom effectively, well, until the Jet Fighter sequence which is absolutely ridiculous and serves no purpose other than to remind us True Lies happened. 4.0 often feels like an attempt to out do other action flicks by cramming, which didn't help my emotional involvement and ruined the verisimilitude of the film. Speaking of verisimilitude, shouldn't McClane's daughter be about 26 now? Why is she a teenager?

Honestly, it was better than I expected it to be. It could have been called anything else. Then again, if it had been, I probably wouldn't have watched it.

7/10

Luke Owen

[dalmatianjaws]

One of the best films of 2007, despite it's over-the-top battle with the jet, this is almost perfect. All critics who claimed it was "not a Die Hard" movie need to realize that, THERE IS NO SUCH THING other than the first Die Hard. Die Harder was a cheap, silly carbon copy of the original and Die Hard with a Vengeance had a strong start and a horrible ending. But the thing that really made them unbearable was the complete and total lack of character. That was not John McClane in those films.

In this fourth installment, McClane is back. But the problem is, he's not like the fan boys remember. This is because he has aged, and here's there real strength of the film, because he has aged realistically. I know this is a hard concept for some people to grasp. But if you really trace the post history of Live Free or Die Hard on the internet, you will find a digital bandwagon. It started with the PG-13 rating and snow balled from there. The major complaints are that (A) it isn't violent enough and (B) John McClane doesn't swear enough.

Are these serious critiques? Honestly? How pathetic.

What made Die Hard great was it's tenacious, if at time tenuous, grip on realism. Any the most realistic and resonating factor of Live Free or Die Hard is the fact that, any man like McClane, who has such a strong moral ethos, would mature into a wizened father figure. Not a spitting, crass, Tasmanian devil. I'll admit, this is what made him great in the first chapter, but if he was the same as he approached fifty-years-old, John McClane would have been a joke. A dirty old man. Instead we got a solid, realistic example of John McClane after a long life. Still tough, still bad-ass.

This film is incredibly well done.


SPOILER FREE


FULL OF AWESOME SPOILERS

[Mahmoud El-Azzeh]

Err... well-said by the dude above me. I always felt this review was a bit harsh by saying this film is not a "Die-Hard" film, i mean, what the hell does that mean anyway? I might be starting some beef here but, this film to me is a better "Die-Hard" film than the middle two installments. It's just pure popcorn fun with yes, some really dumb action moments (Commando anyone?) but that's what I wanted to see so meh! I think to compare the first Die-Hard however is a bit of a moot point considering it was such a staple in everything that we define as an action movie today. Anyhow...

Cool things about the film:

1 - It had that French martial dude from District 13 Cyril Raffaelli, man i was so glad when he managed to dodge Bruce Willis "killing a helicopter with a car".

2 - Maggie Q is smokin... HOT

3 - Justin Long is very charming and likeable in this film. I think the cast in general is very good apart from Kevin Smith (see below) and it's nice to see Bruce accepting his crustiness for once. Next year Die Hard 5 - Arthri-(Die)-Tis.

4 - He kills a freaking helicopter with a car!

5 - Timothy Olyphant. I don't really remember much of him from his previous films but having watched this I wish I should have. William Sadler and Jeremy Irons are badass, but to me, Timothy is the best villain since Rickman. He underplays his character very well instead doing the obvious thing by being eccentric and crazy which is the bigger temptation for actors to do in such a movie (see Nic Cage/John Travolta in Face/Off) and he's also very funny in his sarcastic moments too. I'm really, really hoping that Hitman will kick ass.

6 - The villain isn't from another country other than the US...

Things that were not so great in the film:

1 - Kevin Smith. Don't get me wrong, I like his films and Jay & Silent Bob is just genius, but he just doesn't do the fanboy character well here. I dunno, maybe they should have called Jon Heder or something.

2- Mary Elizabeth Winstead is unbelievably beautiful but there is something about the way that her smarmy "My dad is SO going to hurt you guys!" mentality that is really grating.

3 - Cyril Raffaelli dies way too easily

4 - Any Pro-USA garbage... kinda spoils the film for non-US viewers don't it??

[luke-o]

Thoght I should pop my head up and defend my review.

Did I not say that this is a good action film? Because it is. My main critique of the film was this film could have been called anything else and it wouldn't have mattered. This film was missing something major and that major thing it was missing was John McClane.

I understand that he's aged, theres no denying that. But that shouldn't stop him from acting like McClane. Take his performance in Sin City for example, thats Bruce Willis acting, this film just had Bruce Willis show up and let a stunt double do a load of work.

And I will not backdown on the argument of Timothy Olephant, the guy is a useless waste of space who has been pretty bland in just about every movie he's ever been in. Saying he was better than Irons is pure madness.

[Executor]

i still think the third movie rocks the most
NY, S.L. Jackson, Jeremy Irons and the balance between action and fun was perfect

[dalmatianjaws]

I'm with luke-o on Tim Olyphant . . . I thought he was weak and unconvincing. But as for J McC acting like Bruce Willis . . . well, can't make any other argument than I already have. What made McClane a bad-ass wasn't the fact that he swore or killed or was cocky . . . he was a bad-ass cause he did what he HAD to do no matter what . . . and that's what he does in this one. In pt2 he's a comic book character, in pt3 he's a whiney baby, but in pt4 he takes names, kicks ass, and ponies up to what he has to do, just like in pt1. Only this time, he does it like an old man, which is what he is.

And, for the record, I have to say that the final kill is the best bad-guy kill ever put on film. HOLE E CRAP

[vystral]

I'm with Executor. No future Die Hard film will ever live up to the third one.

[Tiger]

The first Die-Hard film is BY FAR the best of the bunch.