Live Free or Die Hard (2007) 20th Century Fox/Action RT: 129 minutes Unrated Version (language, strong violence) Director: Len Weisman Screenplay: Mark Bomback Music: Marco Beltrami Cinematography: Simon Duggan Release date: June 27, 2007 (US) Cast: Bruce Willis, Justin Long, Timothy Olyphant, Maggie Q, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Cliff Curtis, Kevin Smith, Jonathan Sadowski, Andrew Friedman, Zeljko Ivanek, Christina Chang, Yorgo Constantine, Cyril Raffaelli, Chris Palermo, Sung Kang, Matt O’Leary. Box Office: $134.5M (US)/$383.5M (World)
Rating: ***
I couldn’t believe it when I heard Live Free or Die Hard was rated PG-13. I get it; it was a business decision. The studio wanted to reach a larger audience with the more teen-friendly rating. Personally, I felt betrayed as did all of the fans of the series I’m sure. Nobody wants a toned-down Die Hard movie. We want to hear Bruce Willis utter his trademark catchphrase in its entirety. A PG-13 means the MF part of said catchphrase will likely be obscured in some way. It is in the theatrical version. That’s why the only version I will ever watch is the unrated cut with all the swearing and violence intact.
Directed by Len Wiseman (Underworld), Live Free or Die Hard brings the action and its hero John McClane (Willis) into the 21st century with the beleaguered New York City cop taking on cyberterrorists bent on bringing down the nation’s computer-controlled infrastructure. It was supposed to be a simple assignment. Go to Camden, pick up computer hacker Matt Farrell (Long, Jeepers Creepers) and bring him to Washington D.C. for questioning about an attempted hack at FBI HQ. That’s it. Now when has anything ever been simple for McClane? The cop no sooner gets to Matt’s place when a bunch of armed mercenaries shoot the place up. Somebody wants the young hacker deleted, but why?
McClane and Farrell get to D.C. where they find themselves in the middle of a “fire sale” (as in everything must go), a cyber attack designed to destroy the country’s infrastructure. This entails taking control of all the transportation grids and the stock market followed by a complete shutdown of the power grid resulting in a massive blackout on the East Coast. The mastermind behind the attack is Thomas Gabriel (Olyphant, Hitman), a former Department of Defense analyst with a grudge against the government. Like all great Die Hard villains, he has a plan within his plan. Once again, it’s up to McClane to save the day and preserve the American way of life.
Over the course of the next 24+ hours, McClane is going to be a huge pain in the ass to Gabriel as he constantly interferes with his grand plan to destabilize the country economically. He gets so fed up that he takes McClane’s estranged daughter Lucy (Winstead, Black Christmas) hostage and threatens to kill her if he doesn’t back off. I guess Bonnie Bedelia decided to sit this one out too.
In general, I like Live Free or Die Hard. It’s very much an action movie for the new millennium. It suggests a frightening scenario and puts an old school cop in the thick of it. It’s been twelve years since McClane’s last adventure (Die Hard with a Vengeance). He’s been on the job for almost 30 years. He’s not a young man anymore and doesn’t bounce off concrete like he used to. McClane is a dinosaur, a relic of another time, 100% old school law enforcement. Gabriel is a 21st century villain. He’s doing things that McClane is powerless to stop. He doesn’t understand a lot of this computer stuff. He relies on his new reluctant partner to handle the tech stuff while he kicks ass.
I found myself thinking about the greatness of the 1988 original and realizing Live Free or Die Hard doesn’t quite measure up. It’s good not great. It has plenty of action and a few cool set-pieces. The problem is both the series and its star are starting to show signs of wear and tear. Willis’ heart just doesn’t seem to be in it anymore. He still does a good job as McClane. He gets off some good wise cracks as he works his way through Gabriel’s hired killers and tech-savvy cohorts which include second-in-command Mai Linh (Maggie Q, Mission: Impossible III), a tough chick with serious martial arts skills. The scene that stands out is when McClane destroys a hovering helicopter with a speeding car. When a shocked and impressed Farrell exclaims, “You just killed a helicopter with a car!”, McClane nonchalantly replies, “I was out of bullets.”
Willis and Long work well together. Well enough anyway. Farrell makes a pretty good sidekick once you get used to him. His character isn’t cocky so much as he is clueless about anything that doesn’t directly involve computers. He never imagined something like this when he wrote a piece of code for a supposed security outfit. Now he has baddies firing guns at him trying to kill him. He reacts like any millennial would. That is, until he summons up the courage to be “that guy”.
After the awesomeness of the Gruber brothers, Thomas Gabriel is something of a letdown. He’s weak when compared to the villains from the first and third movies. Olyphant underplays the role which proves to be a mistake. He should have really cut loose. Gabriel is obviously unstable and paranoid. He’s got something to prove and will stop at nothing to accomplish it. The character should have/could have been like something out of a GOOD James Bond flick. Instead, we get a nemesis that seems about as dangerous and creepy as Nick Burns (Your Company’s Computer Guy) from SNL. I kept waiting for him to say “By the way, you’re welcome!”
The addition of Kevin Smith (Clerks) is pretty interesting. He plays a master hacker named Warlock who helps our heroes from the comfort of his “command center”- i.e. his mother’s basement. He provides some nice comic relief. He also did an uncredited polish on the screenplay (along with Willis and Len Wiseman). Winstead is very good as Lucy, now a college student who uses her mother’s last name. She’s angry at her dad for the usual reasons- i.e. his spying on her. She resents him even though she’s more like him than she’d care to admit. I would have liked to have seen her character become more involved in the action.
Live Free or Die Hard is a reasonably entertaining action movie. Like the first two movies, it puts McClane in a disaster movie scenario. It works as well as you’d expect from a fourth movie. The original title was Die Hard 4.0. It has a competent director, a tough guy star and plenty of violence. Plus, it’s always great to hear McClane say you-know-what. What we have here is a good movie that falls short of greatness. It’s not a failure, but it’s a step down from its predecessors. In its defense, it’s a lot better than A Good Day to Die Hard.
