The Cinema of the Four

Live Free or Die Hard

When last I saw my friend John McClane, he had seen much better times. His long-troubled marriage had finally passed the point no terrorist plot could rekindle its spark. That relationship seemed to be replaced with a love affair with the bottle, and his story just didn’t seem to be as engaging as past glories. He seemed but a shadow of his former self.

That was in 1995, and when I heard that, twelve years later, my friend was up to his old tricks, I held little hope that he had recaptured his youthful vigor . . . after all, we can’t all be Rocky Balboa, can we? Be that as it may, I strolled into the first matinee I could to see if “Live Free or Die Hard,” and its hero John McClane, could do the improbable.

It is an old maxim of mine, “Once you have seen ‘Lethal Weapon 4,’ whatever hopes you hold for a fourth movie installment should amount to nil.” I have also found that approaching any movie with lowered expections gives it the best chance for being a happy surprise. Thus you can judge the following remarks as you might.

“Live Free or Die Hard” is the the action treat of the the summer thus far. Bruce Willis reprises John McClane as true to the original outing as anyone could hope almost twenty years later. Justin Long steps up his game from “I’m a Mac” commercials to serve as the perfect tech-assistant sidekick. Mary Elizabeth Winstead (of the “Deathproof” segment of “Grindhouse”) makes McClane’s grown-up daughter Lucy the sort of gal that Jack Bauer’s daughter could only hope to be one day (that’s a “24” reference, for those who missed it). And director Len Wiseman takes a break from a string of “Underworld” movies to show that he really knows his “Die Hard.”

There’s shoot-em-ups, there’s car crashes, there are things that make you wonder if Bruce Willis’s John McClane isn’t really his character from “Unbreakable” (but boy was that guy depressing!). There’s even a techno-thriller hacker plot that doesn’t make you roll your eyes, and might even frighten the more technologically nervous among us.

If you like action movies, “Live Free or Die Hard” will not disappoint.

What Great-grandfather Sherlock would have said:
“El-em-entary, mother-*#%@@$*!”
(Yes, Watson didn’t write up that little quote.)