Since I just wrote about a crappy movie trying to be Die Hard, a Die Hard movie should be a treat, right?
There is a fantastic author for Cracked.com by the name of Daniel O'Brien. He has written multiple articles about Die Hard as a movie, as a series, and as a way of life and I recommend you go read some of them now. He has taught me what Die Hard is and what Die Hard means, as well as how Die Hard has been corrupted. Basically what it boils down to is the fact that "Die Hard" has one of the most well-structured plots in action movies and shows that the protagonist doesn't have to be super soldier Jason Bourne saving the world from ultimate destruction. John McClane was just a New York cop trying to reconnect with his wife and stop a terrorist from killing one room full of hostages nothing more.
Now, John McClane is a super soldier immortal, killing machine, iron-legged, bullet-dodging, super hero saving the world. He is no longer the Die Hard we fell in love with. And this sad.
"A Good Day to Die Hard" is kind of a mess, to be honest. John McClane goes to Russia to see his estranged son who is locked in Russian prison only to find his son escaping from Russian prison while being chased by Russian terrorists. This plot may seem simpler than the bizarre cluster fuck that the fourth movie was, but it gets crazier.
Nothing is ever established in this movie. We see Jack McClane, John's son, talking to some sort of headquarters about some mission that we don't understand, and we later learn that the headquarters is a group of spies and the mission is to find a file, but we never really to get to understand why this spy group even exists. It's even stranger that John, who saw his son just a few years earlier, had no clue that his son was involved in any kind of "spy shit" as he calls it.
This movie immediately goes off the rails, quite literally. Jack is being chased by Russian terrorists with John in pursuit of them. John has no idea what any of the back story or motives for any of the people involved in this chase, he just knows that his son has escaped from jail. Hell, for all he knows, the people chasing his son are the Russian police. However, John McClane immediately steals several cars to tear through Russian traffic costing millions in damages and countless civilian lives, because he's Die Hard and he feels entitled to being Die Hard by this point. Honestly, at one point in the movie a sniper is firing upon them and Jack immediately hits the ground to crawl away while John stands up straight, grabs a machine gun, and blows away two dozen attackers as they run through the door with their own weapons. He freaking knows he's immortal. And that is no fun.
The plot is just bonkers. There are secret agents, double agents, triple secret agents, terrorists everywhere, prisoners that turn out to be terrorists, and plenty of explosions that only seem to kill innocent bystanders and not people that have names. Nothing about the story is restrained or concise, so the storytelling loses everything that made the original great.
The action sequences are insane and rapid, but for the most part they could be considered memorable, if watching twenty explosions in a row is memorable to some people. A few unexpected twists come here and there, but most of the movie is just predictable, over-the-top action fodder.
As much as I have been tearing down this movie, it does have a spark of life that I can't deny. I love Die Hard, and I can't help but notice the little elements that make it special int he world of action movies. Die Hard has always been a family man, so it was nice that they actually allowed significant pauses in the action for John and Jack to talk. These are not teary, emotional diatribes, but rather little hiatuses that allow for some character development. Unfortunately, this is diluted by the fact that most of the dialogue between John and Jack takes the form of standard, snappy Die Hard one-liners.
Standard, snappy Die Hard one-liners are in great supply, another element that helps to make this movie still feel like a Die Hard movie. This includes plenty of one-liners that John says in the company of absolutely no one, in classic Die Hard style. There are a few references to the first movie, including John's uncanny ability to recognize undercover terrorists, and a beautiful shot of a man falling off the side of a building with the exact expression used by Alan Rickman just twenty-five years ago.
"A Good Day to Die Hard" is an insane, over-the-top, ADD-driven action movie, and despite the deep love I have for Die Hard and all he stands for, this movie cannot overcome the sins of the previous movie and the sins of all modern Hollywood action movies. Avoid It. Though it hurts me to say.
Until next time, please share your thoughts on the movie in the comments!
-kmaker
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