Live Free or Die Hard Release Date: June 27, 2007 Starring: Bruce Willis, Timothy Olyphant, Justin Long, Maggie Q, Cliff Curtis, Mary Elizabeth Winstead Directed by: Len Wiseman
For the fourth time since maverick super-cop John McClane first appeared in 1988's Die Hard, the now 52-year-old Bruce Willis is again in the wrong place at the right time, bloodied and limping, peering around corners without a bullet left, and crackin' wise after wasting the baddies anyway. Touted as much for its old-school stunts and extravagant set pieces as its refreshing lack of CGI fakery, Live Free or Die Hard (or as it's been titled overseas, Die Hard 4.0) is an unexpectedly retro throwback to '80s actioners and '90s hacker movies, totally preposterous in both its heroic near-death escapes and abstract tech-jargon explanations for how anyone with geeky inclinations can remotely override any computer system with a few easy keystrokes. When villain du jour Thomas Gabriel (Deadwood's Timothy Olyphant) berates McClane for being a "Timex watch in a digital era," the irony seems lost on everyone that the same insult could've been made two decades ago, but kudos to director Len Wiseman (Underworld) for embracing its plot-hole inanities in favor of satisfying adrenaline thrills. Like McClane himself, this is an analog movie in a digital world — proudly outdated, yet guaranteed to get the job done.
Inspired by a Wired Magazine article on "I-war" scenarios by John Carlin, David Marconi's original screenplay was first called WW3.com before being retooled by Mark Bomback to fit Willis's beloved badass (just as the third Die Hard script was nearly the basis for Lethal Weapon 4). This piecemeal kind of construction is common in Hollywood, so it might be coincidental that LFODH plays out like Die Hard: Greatest Hits, Volume 1. Watch as McClane ducks explosions while dangling from elevator shafts (Die Hard), fights for his life on the wing of a plane (Die Hard 2), and explores industrialized caverns with an accidental partner in tow (Die Hard: With a Vengeance).
Here, said sidekick is Mac spokesman Justin Long as a cyber-pirate named Matt Farrell, who McClane is randomly called on to escort to the FBI, and is soon protecting from a never-ending army of high-caliber goons. It's all part of the stakes for tight-lipped, Lenin-quoting virtual terrorist Gabriel, who has upped the franchise ante in a panic-inducing scheme to reset America's infrastructure by dismantling its transportation, financial, and utilities systems. Audiences are meant to fear this chaos in real life, and the evil strategy is neatly and commonly referred to throughout (but not once in the Carlin article) under the buzzword "fire sale," since everything must go. It would all seem timely if the scripted logistics weren't thin enough to keep the lowest common denominator wide-eyed and questioning nothing.
So it's silly that for the next two hours, while McClane kills helicopters with cars and other nifty superhuman tricks, most of the story hinges on Gabriel's "l33t" squadron shutting down servers that Farrell (and later, cranky nerdling pal Kevin Smith, inevitably making Star Wars references) must counter-hack, since none of it makes a lick of technological sense.
Reinvention is clearly not on the agenda today, as even the women have the same thankless roles they did in vintage Schwarzenegger and Stallone vehicles. Maggie Q turns up as Gabriel's merciless lover, seen slinking around on a cell phone for the film's first half and demonstrating her martial-arts prowess in the later half, and McClane's daughter (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) becomes little more than the token loved-one-in-peril.
But who cares about all that? Cut back to our hero and show us the collateral damage! Yippie ki yay, mutha… Oh wait, this one's rated PG-13.
READ MORE: Interview: Timothy Olyphant
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