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Asymmetric Movie Review: Live Free or Die Hard-same old
07/16/07
If you’ve seen any of the previous Die Hard Movies, I've included the following 45 version of a longer review:
Character: It’s a Die Hard Movie.
Plot: It’s a Die Hard Movie.
Special effects: Boom! + monkey-man.
Dialogue: “Yippee Kay Yeah, MF”
Message: It’s a Die Hard Movie.
Should you go see it? If you like Die Hard movies, yes.
The LP version follows:
Character:
For everybody else, Live Free or Die Hard (Die hard 4) (which has only the most tenuous connection with freedom as a theme-obviously the name is a marketing decision) is a little difficult to explain. The hero, John McClane (Bruce Willis), isn’t clever or suave like James Bond, but he has a better sense of humor (see “Yippee…” above) than Jack Bauer. He’s an unremarkable hero himself, but distinguishes himself by the manner in which society calls upon his substantial survival skills. The hook in all of the Die Hard movies is McClane’s accidental heroism. He’s not an anti-terrorism expert like Jack or a Secret Agent like James, he’s just a cop who, every ten years or so, is in the right place, in the right time to perform those actions which make for high box office. Everybody else in the movie is forgettable to say the least.
Plot:
This time, somebody is killing computer hackers on some government (I think it’s the F.B.I) list and John’s given the mundane task of bringing in one of the last survivors. A routine task, you’re thinking? Ha! After foiling Matt Farrell’s (Justin Long) murder, McClane whisks him to the station. On the ride to the hacker debriefing department, the “fire sale” starts. What’s a “fire sale.” Apparently filmed before the advanced security features in Microsoft's Windows Vista, the villains in Die Hard 4 can hack into some super-computer and wreak havoc with everything from financial transactions to police radios and cell phone calls. What does the main villain, Thomas Gabriel, played blandly by Timothy Olyphant, want to do with such power? No, not give everybody two first names; he wants to erase all electronically held data, resetting society to zero, as it were-unless he’s given one million dollars or whatever.
Just like seeing the villain put away at the end of the movie assures the reader that he’ll return for the sequel, whenever a man has an argument with his daughter at the beginning of an action film, he’ll end up saving her at the end. And, Thomas Gabriel uses his tech wizardry to capture Lucy McClane (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who motivates her father to capture and kill Gabriel.
The plot is serviceable, but it’s been done much better and in a calmer manner in Sneakers and other movies. You could see the daughter subplot a mile away. Unlike Transformers, I wanted this movie to be wrapped up quickly.
Special effects/stunts:
In order for special effects to impress in 2007, they have to be directed towards some logical end or else be original in some way, and those in Die Hard 4 fail to meet that standard. Like True Lies, we get a good hovering-airplane scene, but it seems over-the-top and unnecessary. Is a truck really that hard to take out? Couldn’t they dispatch about ten cops to shoot at the tires instead? And, I swear I saw the same monkey-man antics in the last James Bond movie, Casino Royale.
Dialogue:
Die Hard 4 has one good line. Thomas Gabriel retorts to McClane’s incessant and mildly racial mockery of the death of Gabriel’s girlfriend, Mai Lihn (Maggie Q) with, “What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue? Come on John, make a joke. Say something funny” after capturing McClane’s daughter and, thus the upper hand, shutting him up, effectively.
Winner for the cheap line of the year award is the “Yippee Kay Yeah” pander.
Politics, message:
Not too much. It praises father-daughter relationships, although one can infer from Die Hard 4 that one’s children can give super-villains important bargaining chips.
The college-aged hacker spouts the kind of media-conspiracy nonsense that one hears from marginal groups until shut up by McClane’s more seasoned perspective.
Non-aligned critics:
My wife found it boring.

Sneakers (Collector's Edition)

Casino Royale (Two-Disc Widescreen Edition)
Cast and credits below
Follow up:
Directed by
Len Wiseman
Writing credits
(WGA)
Mark Bomback (screenplay)
Mark Bomback (story) and
David Marconi (story)
John Carlin (article "A Farewell to Arms")
Roderick Thorp (certain original characters)
Cast (in credits order)
Bruce Willis ... John McClane
Timothy Olyphant ... Thomas Gabriel
Justin Long ... Matt Farrell
Maggie Q ... Mai Lihn
Cliff Curtis ... Bowman
Jonathan Sadowski ... Trey
Andrew Friedman ... Casper
Kevin Smith ... Warlock
Yorgo Constantine ... Russo
Cyril Raffaelli ... Rand
Chris Palermo ... Del
Mary Elizabeth Winstead ... Lucy McClane
Sung Kang ... Raj
Zeljko Ivanek ... Molina
Christina Chang ... Taylor
Jake McDorman ... Jim
Rosemary Knower ... Mrs. Kaludis
Gerald Downey ... Hoover Agent
Allen Maldonado ... Goatee
Jim Cantafio ... Deli Owner
Chris Ellis ... Scalvino
Regina McKee Redwing ... Nearby Agent
Tony Colitti ... Chief Hazmat Agent
Tim De Zarn ... Police Sergeant
Kurt David Anderson ... Miller
Matt O'Leary ... Clay
Nadine Ellis ... Teller
Ethan Flower ... Trader
Nick Jaine ... Phone Guy
Tim Russ ... Chuck Summer
Joe Gerety ... Jack Parry
Edward James Gage ... On Duty PP Operator
David Walrod ... Deli Customer
Edoardo Costa ... Emerson
John Reha ... Slacker Kid
Yancey Arias ... Agent Johnson
Rick Cramer ... MP Rodriguez
Vito Pietanza ... DC Cop #1
Dennis Depew ... D.C. Cop #2
Howard Tyrone Ferguson ... DC Cop #3
John Lacy ... EMT
Diana Gettinger ... FBI Dispatcher
Melissa Knowles ... Freeway Reporter
1 comment
Great review though.



