Die Hard 4

Sian's Film Review

Die Hard 4.0
Rated M

Having not seen any of the other three Die Hard films, I was conflicted as to whether I should make a trip to the local video store and rent them, or just go to the cinema a Die Hard virgin.

I decided on the latter, settling myself in the cinema seat praying I wouldn’t be wondering what on earth was going on the whole film.

It’s been 12 years since Die Hard 3 and thankfully 20th Century Fox don’t expect viewers to have long memories; Die Hard 4.0 (or Live Free Die Hard as its dubbed in America) can be watched as an entirely separate film to the others.

After suffering a computer systems breach, the FBI send out local law enforcement officers around the country to round up the nations best hackers for questioning. NYPD detective John McClane (Bruce Willis, who may I add isn’t looking too bad for 52!) is sent to retrieve the jittery, fast talking Matthew Farrell (Justin Long). But instead of a simple retrieval, McClane finds himself fighting some extremely determined and well-equipped badies who have been sent to dispose of the young hacker.

It’s all down hill from there with the badies sabotaging the department of transport, crashing Wall Street, cutting off all electricity and phone lines and overriding all television stations (watch for the speech pieced together by footage of various American Presidents, very clever). McClane appoints himself guardian of the sought after Farrell and sets out to tackle the badies head on.

Die Hard 4.0 is escapism at its best taking no time to get into the action. The film has some great one-liners particularly between the heroic McCalen and wimpy computer-nerd Farrell who share a lot of screen time. The chemistry between Willis and Long is fantastic. The two create some genuine laugh-out-loud moments, avoiding the cheesy quips too common in action films.

It’s a shame the same can’t be said for the head badie of the film Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant). Olyphant gives a cringe-worthy, clichéd performance. Though he tries hard (very hard) to be menacing, he isn’t convincing, the mad glint in his eye coming across as a little pathetic rather than unnerving. But the film doesn’t suffer too much because of this. The slick interaction between Willis and Long make up for Olyphant’s short fallings.

The special effects are jaw dropping and the actions sequences artistically executed. It isn’t just a jumble of noise and explosions, each sequence was carefully thought through, resulting in a visual feast. Though a word of warning: leave your sense of realism at home, you’d want to suspend belief before entering the cinema for this one!

Though the film starts off with some impressive action sequences and amazing stunts, you could still say: “yeah with a bit of luck that might be possible”, but by no stretch of the imagination could you believe some of McClane’s feats towards the end of the film (who thought riding on the wing of a flying fighter jet could be so easy…?)