A Good Day to Die Hard
★
Dir: John Moore
(2013)
1988's Die Hard is a classic action film; Simple, fun, excessively violent, loud and confined. It rebranded the action hero as an everyday Joe (or John as it were) and it paved the way for 2 sequels which were adequate in almost every way. Renny Harlin bringing John McClane back to the screen and basically doing the same film but in an airport and, in 1997, John McTiernan returned for a ludicrously over due but enjoyable race around New York City in Die Hard with a Vengeance. Len Wiseman's Live Free or Die Hard seemed to be as bad as it could get with the fashionable inclusion of the kids of the super cop; But the producers either missed everything that had made the others so much fun or over cooked them so much it was impossible to stomach. With Live Free or Die Hard John Moore heads past the bottom of the barrel through the floor and into the basement in this terrible, empty shoot-em-up with Bruce Wills' John McClane looking far more bored of the whole thing than we are.
The heart of his iconic character is a distant memory, his likeability and his charisma has up and vanished and (maybe because this shit has happened to him 5 times) it's like watching an old robot wandering around with a shot-gun going through the motions. These motions take place in Russia where his son (Jai Courtney) has gotten himself in a spot of bother with some nasty men who are after unlocking some secrets in the bowels of Chernobyl. The less said about the plot the better; To be honest as it's pretty much an incomprehensible, frantic whirlwind of steaming tot. McClane pops over to rescue Jr.and the pair drive and run around the place killing loads of henchmen side by side in a testosterone intoxicated heartless bonding session which will make you want to chew your own fingers off.
Sebastian Koch and Mary Elizabeth Winstead are there too. Only just. In another blow to female leads in genre films she arrives dressed in a skin-tight leather suit on a motorcycle for no other reason than to lure in the 15-year-old boys. Koch almost out does Willis' palpable disdain for the picture in a completely 2D role and if Willis' charm here is microscopic then Courtney's is simply invisible The whole thing reeks of a shameful desperation which Willis can only cover by yelling "I'm on vacation!" every 3 minutes as he's being shot at. Look, I'm 33 years old this year and I've sadly lived to see many of the iconic genre benders from my childhood be franchised, rebooted, sold, lead by the neck, stoned in the street and buried in a nameless grave but A Good Day to Die Hard is so vicious in its lynching of McClane's character it might forever stands out as the one I'll remember hurting the most.
