A Good Day To Die Hard Review

14th Feb 2013

It’s a good day to… …shoot me now.

We’ve come a long way in years since John McLane found himself locked in to a high rise office block in LA with no way to go but through the terrorists. In fact it’s 25 years since, and now John McClane is off to Russia to start all sorts of new trouble in the fifth film in the franchise.

McClane has two fully grown children now. A daughter, who got mixed up in his antics in the last film (and makes a cameo here), and now his son John McClane Jr. (Jai Courtney).

The trouble is, Jack (as he is called) has landed himself in trouble abroad and has been arrested by the Russian authorities. John (Willis) decides to travel out there to see if he can help his son out, despite being estranged from him (Yup, this will be the last sibling he needs to patch things up with).

But all is not as it seems from junior’s point of view. And even from the bad guys point of view, things are going to get a bit complicated as father and son find themselves in a fire fight every 10 minutes or so from some of the most forgettable bad guys in recent memory. Timothy Olyphant can let out a sigh of relief now that he is no longer the lamest bad guy in the series to date. But seriously the plot is wafer thin; makes little sense going along, and even less sense as the tale tries to present twists. We simply don’t care as we never get enough drama to support any of it.

As for the father and son team: There is certainly chemistry between the two – but it’s mainly down to the fact that Jai Courtney is such a strong actor. He impressed already as a villain in Jack Reacher, and here easily holds his own next to Willis. But the dialogue and the basic script material the two are given is text book family fallout stuff, and is skimmed over from scene to scene until they just stop being angry at each other.

Skip Woods is not known for delivering a script that has produced a memorable film (Hitman, X-men Origins: Wolverine). He also worked closely with Willis as the onset writer on the last film. Clearly he has not done his research in either instance, and instead seems to be serving the Willis machine as opposed to the one that should fuel John McClane.

It seems the producers learned one vital lesson from the previous film where they stripped out all the swearing (which, whether you think it is infantile or not, is a key ingredient to not just a Die Hard movie, but the character of John McClane). So there are a few F-bombs bandied about in this fifth instalment – and of course quite boringly they inject his key send-off line at the climax at an opportune moment. Funny how that line was never intended as the character finale send-off quote, but was actually used pithily in the middle of the first film. But some studios will ignore what the audience needs and just repeat what they liked.

The inclusion of potty words though are a minor adjustment when you consider how toned down the action is. At first you think it’s just bad direction on John Moore’s part (and John Moore is an unbelievably poor director) but it’s a combination of that and censorship to get that lower rating. Die Hard in its purest incarnation was always an 18 certificate. The sequels lowered the tone, and for some parts they worked just fine, but the raw energy of the character and the raw edge to the antics he got up to were strictly always for an adult crowd. Apparently now we are making more jokes than we are offing bad guys in direct and violent fashion.

The humour is also a prime suspect in this film as there are way too many attempts to make jokes. Even the bad guys try their hand at it from time to time (forgettable as they are). The worst offender though is Willis moaning about his vacation being ruined which he states far too often and sometimes are very odd moments. So it’s Die Hard the comedy? What next? Carry on Die Hard? Just pray they don’t go Die Hard the Musical which can only be a producer’s next thought away.

In all honesty Willis is promising a sixth film, which we will welcome with open arms if they A: raise the content to adult level, B: simplify the plot, C: Hire a writer who is not a friend of Bruce Willis and D: Hire a director that understands geography and can ignore a soon to be former A-List stars ego.

John McClane deserves to go out on a film that is better than this. So we do keep fingers crossed that lessons are learnt, and something better comes our way in a few years that reminds us of better days of Die Hard.