Bruce Willis is back to save the day once again in the 4th outing for Sergeant John McClane.
This time the terrorists are home-grown and trying to take down the very government itself by use of fire sale! No, not the kind of fire sale with burnt books and smoke damaged bedding, but the kind using, wait for it……..flashy computers! ARGH THE TERROR!
It’s been 12 years since we last saw John McClane running about New York after Hans Gurber’s brother yet it doesn’t look like Bruce Willis has aged at all. He’s still all grubby vest and hard as fucking nails. So, why is it, that Die Hard 4.0 leaves you feeling so flat?
Let’s have a quick run down comparison of the previous films versus this one and see if we can work it out:
John McClane: Check
Grubby Vest: Check
Lots of Action : Check
Over the top plot: Check
Explosive Set Pieces: Check
Running about trying to stop bad guys while nobody else is believing you : Check
Really Great Bad Guy : Ah…..sorry, might be onto something here.
One man army, hell bent on victory? : Um, ok that could be missing a bit too.
Lets start with the second point first. Justin Long plays super geek Matthew Farrell, a hacker genius marked for death at the hands of all round nasty piece of work, Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant).
It’s this young hero that our Bruce is originally sent to fetch and bring to safety. Now, this is the first thing that didn’t sit right with me, in the original film Bruce is trying to save a building (and the hostages within it), the second one an airport, the third the US gold reserves. But in this 4th version, he pretty much just spends his time saving Matthew from getting whacked. True, the plot then expands to take on the baddies but you never really feel Bruce is fully focused on anything apart from the boy. Apparently, in the original script the Matthew character was actually John McClane’s son, which certainly would explain the over protection.
Anyway, on to the real problem with Die Hard 4.0
Every Die Hard needs a good baddy, not just an bad guy, but a real evil son of a bitch. You can’t beat Alan Rickman in the first one and Jeremy Irons isn’t bad either but like Die Hard 2, this one isn’t quite bad enough. Thomas Gabriel just isn’t that bad a baddie. Sure he’s a killer, he’s out for money and pissing people off but he never comes close to the nut case Hans Gruber and the film is lacking severely for it. Timothy Olyphant does a good turn but the part is under written and missing the real feeling of menace or commitment needed to make an audience believe this person is capable of anything.
Lastly, there’s the plot. There’s more holes in it than stains on John McClane’s vest! Here’s one example from many; there’s a moment towards the end of the film where Deputy Director Miguel Bowman (Cliff Curtis) is informed by a couple of colleagues about a secret facility where the baddies are trying to download various banking information (that’s the entire plot by the way). This is the location for the grand finale, big explosions, fights, showdowns etc. It strikes you the moment they say it, that maybe this information should have been passed along a wee bit earlier, like maybe the second they found out who was behind the fire sale? It’s clearly tacked on in order to move the action forward and it really shows. There’s also a bit of a problem with the action itself. It’s too over the top. In the first film, you felt John’s pain when he was walking over that broken glass. In this one, you see him walk away from so many crashes and smashes, you half expect him to slap on a red cape and start flying!
Taken on it’s own, Die Hard 4.0 isn’t a bad action movie. There’s some great effects and amusing moments but it makes the worst mistake of the franchise, and that’s that it just doesn’t give you that great feeling that other movies do. It simply doesn’t feel like a Die Hard film.