OK now this is the final part of my Die Hard posts, and this will
cover the latest installment in the franchise, Die Hard 4.0 (or, Live
Free or Die Hard as its called in the US). So as usual why not start
with a bit more about the plot...
Starting at the
start, the film begins with police officer John McClane (Brucey) being
order by his superior officer at the NYPD to bring in a young hacker,
Matt Farrell (Justin Long) to protective custody. On finding Matt, an
attempt is made on the young hacker's life, and McClane manages to get
him out of there before the assassins kill him. McClane takes Matt to
Washington D.C. where he will be taken into custody by the FBI, and Matt
explains that he was going to be paid a large sum of money for writing
some security code for Mai Linh (Maggie Q) who turns out to be one of
the cyberterrorists, lead by Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant), who was
once a DOD (Department of Defence) analyst for the Government who was
dismissed after finding flaws in the security systems. On arriving in
D.C. the traffic lights stop working all over the city, and traffic is
grinded to a gridlock. McClane gets Matt to the FBI cyber crime
division, where they talk to Depty Director, Miguel Bowman (Cliff
Curtis). At this point the television networks are filled with a video
compilation of the former presidents of the USA, stringing together a
threatening speech from past speeches. Matt soon realises that Gabriel
is planning a "firesale", which is an attack on the country's computer
infrastructure, which means Gabriel will take out the nation's
electricity, fuel and water supplies. Bowman has McClane and Matt
escorted by agents to the FBI headquarters, but their car is
intercerpted by a chopper enroute, which takes out the agent driver.
McClane and Matt soon escape sight of the chopper by going into a
tunnel, abandoning the car, McClane gets into another car and uses it to
launch an attack on the chopper, as he revs it up and it flies up over a
damaged toolboth, thereby destroying the chopper.
After
this McClane with Farrell's help find out that the terrorists next
target will be a power grid and they drive to a power station in West
Virginia. At the station McClane takes out the team of terrorists and
Mai, McClane contacts Gabriel, informing him his team and Mai are dead
(who was his girlfriend), which pisses off Gabriel, who then sends by
remote control, the stations gas supply into it, and McClane and Farrell
narrowly escape being killed in the resulting explosion of the
station. After Farrell decides to get the help of his hacker friend,
the "Warlock" Freddie Klaudis (Kevin Smith) who is initially reluctant
to help them, especially as McClane is a cop, but he tells them that the
piece of code Farrell wrote, was part of a code that will enable
Gabriel to download all personal and finanical records into a secure
facility based at Woodlawn, Maryland. However Gabriel discovers and
tracks Freddie's hack and speaks to McClane, and tells him that he will
go after his daughter Lucy McClane (Mary Elisabeth Winstead), who he
tracks by use of her mobile phone, and sends his men in to kidnap her.
McClane then heads off to Woodlawn with Farrell, once they get there,
McClane takes out most of Gabriel's men, however Gabriel captures
Farrell, who is caught encrypting the data that Gabriel has downloaded,
and he escapes with Farrell and Lucy. McClane follows them and in
pirsuit kills one of Gabriel's men, driving a truck, but Gabriel is able
to hack into the Military corps computers, and convinces a nearby jet
fighter airpilot into believing that McClane is in fact a terrorist.
The pilot launches an attack on McClane's truck, but McClane narrowly
escapes by launching the truck into the aircraft, which destroys both
the aircraft and the truck. McClane soon after tracks Gabriel to a
warehouse, where Gabriel forces Farrell to decrypt the data, and there
we have the inevitable final showdown....
Die Hard 4.0,
or Live Free or Die Hard, if you like, is another enjoyable entry in
the franchise, and while it isn't the strongest of the four, it
definitely is more entertaining than Die Hard 2 was. It was inevitable
that with ever changing technology, that Die Hard would sooner or later
get to cyberterrorism, and while its hardly an original concept or plot
(look no further than the James Bond film, Goldeneye, and you will see
the plot is very similar!) the film is still very enjoyable. In Die
Hard 4.0 we see John McClane is becoming more and more out of touch with
technology, as he clearly is an old school guy, and is very wary
throughout of all technical jargon he faces from Farrell. In fact there
times where McClane's character is almost overly simplified because for
him its all absolutes, as he says things like "I'm gonna find the bad
guy and kill him, and get my daughter" or "how about I find you, kick
your ass out of your own party!". However that is pretty much the
essence of McClane's character, as Gabriel points out at one stage that
he is "a timex watch in a digital age", he's a dinosaur in modern age.
However
character wise, Die Hard 4.0 has quite a lot going for it, Bruce Willis
once again as McClane is as reliable and likeable as he usually is, and
his over protectiveness of his daughter is quite amusing, especially at
the start when he spies on his daughter Lucy making out with a guy in a
car, and he pulls the guy out of the car, and Lucy accuses him of
spying on her, and McClane defensively says "I wasn't spying on you!".
He also has the odd moment of personal reflection where he says to
Farrell how his life isn't all that great that way it has worked out,
being divorced from his wife Holly, and that its up to him to do what he
has to do to keep Farrell alive and safe.
Matt Farrell
played by Justin Long is not a bad character, although there are a few
scenes where he does annoy me, one which is where he berates McClane for
listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son", and says
it "I'd rather have a pine cone shoved up my ass than listen to this!".
However at the start you hear the crappy Goth metal pish music that
Farrell listens to, and I gladly would put the mute on any day rather
listen to that, in fact where is the pine cone????? (OK I pushed it too
far there, ahem!! ;-). Another annoying and pointless scene with
Farrell is where they break into a car and instead of letting McClane
hotwire it, he begs with the car's automated voice system to start the
car by pretending that he was in a bad car accident, after which it
eventually starts the car. I mean why bother????? It would be much
quicker to just hotwire it anyway!! Lucy McClane is also very well
represented by the rather nice Mary Elisabeth Winstead, who personality
wise follows in her father's footsteps, in being headstrong, stubborn
and gutsy. In fact Justin Long as Farrell get's one of the best lines
in the film when Mary (as Lucy) says "look do you wanna grow some
balls??!", to which Farrell replies "Wow! I'm use to hearing that tone,
but its funny to hear it from someone with hair!".
Supporting
character wise the film also benefits from some fine performances,
particularly from Cliff Curtis as FBI deputy director Bowman, who is
very good. Curtis is also a very chamaeleonic actor, and from one film
to the next, there are times you wouldn't recognise it was even him!
Accent wise Curtis also is quite versatile, as he has played Americans,
Hispanics, Muslims and of course New Zealand (where he is from!).
Maggie Q is also fine (and is foine!) as the icy cool assassin Mai, who
at one point McClane says to Gabriel on the phone that "that little
ninja chick was smokin hot!". And of course Kevin Smith plays a very
amusing cameo role as the "Warlock", the hacker, who literally lives in
his mum's basement. Smith also has one of the film's most amusing
exchanges with Willis, in the scene where McClane looks at one of
Warlock's figurines of Bobba Fett, and Warlock says "are you a fan of
the Fett?" and McClane none the wiser replies "no, I was always more of a
Star Wars guy!".
The film of course however does have
a few flaws, the main one probably being that as the franchise has
progressed, it has gotten more and more over the top and proposterous,
and here it reaches it limits. In Die Hard 4.0, McClane is now taking
out choppers by launching cars at them, and facing off marine aircraft
and taking them down. Even by the standard of what went before in the
series, this is getting really ridiculous on the "credibility" stakes,
and has you shaking your head in disbelief. The other film's main flaw
for me is Timothy Olyphant, who makes for the least most effective
villain in the Die Hard franchise. Olyphant's Gabriel is more of a
whining nerd, then a menacing baddie and at no point do you really get
that he is that much of a match for McClane. Olyphant also clearly
lacks the courage of his convictions in killing anyone himself, as he
really is like a boy sending men to do his work for him, unlike the
Gruber's, who are seasoned professionals and not to be toyed with.
That's not to take away Timothy Olyphant's performance, which is not too
bad, but he clearly has been short changed by his character. Perhaps
also another slight flaw in the film, is just perhaps due to its lower
PG-13 rating (still rated a 15 certificate in the UK), the film contains
much less profanity, which possibly takes away from the grittiness that
fuelled the previous films well. But I don't think that's a bad thing
though, as it does provide a welcome change and proves that you don't
really need a lot of effin and blinding to make a film work.
Direction
wise though Len Wiseman, who was responsible for directing the awful
Underworld films, acquits himself quite well here with Die Hard 4.0, and
handles the action scenes very well, as well as the pacing of the film,
and he also neatly leaves the film's conclusion wide open for another
film to follow.
However the film that followed turned out to be A Good Day to Die Hard, which was released earlier this year, and unlike the other films, its received a real lambasting from the critics, and I have not as yet seen it, but I would imagine that it would pale in comparison to the previous four films. The plot as far as I know involves John McClane helping his estranged son, Jack, out of prison in Russia during a terrorist threat, and that's all I will say about it just now. However perhaps one day I will give it a watch and add to this compendium (if that is the right word!).
And on that note I shall leave it there and that's it for the Die Hard posts. Yippeee ki-yay, mutha fu***!!
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