Bruce Willis (left) and Justin Long (right) star in Live Free or Die Hard
20th Century Fox
Punch first, think later
Twelve years since the series’ last film, Live Free or Die Hard doesn’t disappoint
By Beth Capper
Published: June 29th, 2007 | 2:06pm
It’s easy to see why Bruce Willis is the hip choice for any film with a tough-but-sweet cop, or charismatic bad guy. Since the first <i>Die Hard</i> film was released in 1988, Willis has thoroughly reinvented himself; transposing his anti-action hero persona for a slew of Quentin Tarantino projects, and some offbeat roles in sci-fi films like The Fifth Element and Twelve Monkeys. Unlike Schwarzenegger or Stallone, Willis moved with the times, and while he may not be the “Governator of California,” at least his movie career still has a pulse.
It’s been 12 years since the last Die Hard movie, and for fans of the franchise, Live Free or Die Hard will not disappoint. The formula is pretty much the same as always. There’s a new terrorist threat against America, and like Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) in hit TV series 24, John McClane is the only person who can prevent it. The important difference between Die Hard and 24 is that Bauer is an expert on terrorists working for the government, whereas McClane is a rather dim NYPD detective prone to punching anything that gets in the way of freedom. And that, of course, is what makes Die Hard so endlessly entertaining.
McClane is in much the same state as always — working his ass off for relatively few benefits, while the turbulent relationship with his ex-wife, which typified the previous movies, has been replaced by a turbulent relationship with his teenage daughter Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). But McClane doesn’t have much time to think about that, because what he thought was going to be a routine arrest soon turns into a machine-gun fight with the terrorists. The target is hacker Matt Farrell (Justin Long), who, along with a network of other hackers, has been unwittingly aiding miffed ex-NSA computer expert Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant). It seems Gabriel tried to tell the government how vulnerable they were to cyber-terrorism, but no one listened to him, so now he’s out to teach the country a little lesson in homeland “security” — and hopefully make some fast cash on the side — by activating a “fire sale.” In non-nerd speak, that’s a complete overhaul of the computer systems that single-handedly keep America’s infrastructure afloat.
As Farrell, Long soon occupies the shoes that Samuel L. Jackson filled as McClane’s undesired sidekick in Die Hard with a Vengeance and, luckily for “punch first, think later” McClane, Farrell is much cleverer than he is. For that matter, so are the terrorists, but does that stop McClane from kicking every single one of their asses?
Hell no.
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