Easily the best pure action movie of the summer, (maybe until next week) Live Free or Die Hard is a ride from beginning to end. Ok, to start off, you need to check your disbelief at the door. There are several scenes that just don’t make sense in the physical world we inhabit (think, Samuel Jackson and Bruce Willis swinging on a wire cable from a bridge onto a moving tanker vessel from the last Die Hard film), and the director pretty much skirts the whole time/distance issue as Willis’ Det. John McClane drives and flies around the Eastern Seaboard tracking down and killing bad guys. However, if you just disregard all of that, this is a fun movie that will have you on the edge of your seat.
LFODH (figure this is an appropriate internet acronym given the tech heavy subject material of the film) brings back John McClane, several years after the last movies. After the FBI’s Cyber-terrorism Bureau is hacked, McClane is called on to bring in one of several hackers potentially responsible. It turns out that many of these hackers have been killed to cover up an evil master plan, and McClane walks into an attempt on the last one (Long). As the two escape, the havoc begins, and one by one, every vital system of the U.S. infrastructure is shut down by the bad guys, led by cyber terrorist Timothy Oliphant (from Deadwood and the chick flick Catch and Release). The usual Die Hard radio banter beween good guy and bad guy acompanies the standard “No one else can save the world by McClane” plot. As the U.S. govt flails around trying to reestablish order, Willis saves the world again, playing McClane somewhat older, but still tough as nails to Long’s tech weenie sidekick, which makes for a pretty good buddy-cop matchup. There’s plenty of exploding, shooting, running, jumping, kicking, bleeding fun with hottie Maggie Q (the Q stands for Quigley interestingly,…or maybe not) as the bad guy’s girlfriend and a little parkour thrown in for good measure, taking a cue from Casino Royalle. There’s no real reason for a sane person to wonder how this will all turn out, but the feeling of suspense is there regardless. The action keeps coming at you, and there’s just enough of the normal Die Hard smartass humor thrown in to keep things moving. Don’t kid yourself, there aren’t any Oscars waiting for this movie, but if you want a fun exciting kick-ass action flick, this is the one for you. Some will disagree based on nostalgia, but I think this is a worthy addition to the Die Hard series. If you’re not into giant CG robots, this will probably be your favorite action movie of the season.
