Left Field Cinema

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I heard that Mr Bruce Willis AKA Mr John McLaine would be returning for yet another Die Hard film. There was ecstatic joy that one of my favourite movie series would be reprised, that after a long draught, there would at last be at the very least a decent action movie (worthy of my money) to feast upon. However this was tempered with caution and even apprehension. This was for a number of reasons:

1. This was to be the forth in the series and the previous instalment came out when my now twenty eight year old ass was still old enough to get free medication. I worried that maybe Die Hard had aged that there was no where else for it to go. I stressed that maybe just maybe this Die Hard would falter in the same way Superman 4 did.

2. The chosen director was the hack vampire movie helmer that is Len Wiseman. Yes, that would be the same man who brought us the Underworld movies.

3. With the exception of Michael “The Rock” Bay, there hasn’t been a movie director who has come within a 10, 000 mile radius of taking over the reins from said high octane auteurs as James “Terminator 2: Judgement Day” Cameron (who has been on a sabbatical since True Lies), John “The Killer” Woo (whose last good action movie was Face Off and has now gone back to Hong Kong), John “Die Hard” McTiernan (who has fallen by the action movie wayside), Kathryn “Point Break” Bigelow (who has disappeared off the face of the planet), Andrew “The Fugitive” Davis (Collateral Damage anyone?), Richard “Lethal Weapon” Donner (may no longer have the energy for an action movie of this scale) etc. These have unfortunately being replaced by abject failures such as Andrzej “Doom” Bartkowiak. There have been reliable and trusted helmers such as Tony “Déjà vu” Scott and Paul “The Bourne Supremacy” Greengrass. But they have not recently produced anything on the high level of fun explosive escapism that we all love and rightly expect.

4. My reservations were compounded by my horrifying experience of sitting through an entire session of Spiderman 3. The sight of a female villain and John McLaine’s daughter in the trailer created fears that an evil Buffy the Vampire/May Jayne hybrid would effectively highjack the movie and send the Die Hard series to hell.

All fears were (literally) blown away. Although by no means a perfect movie, it more than does the job, like that great kebab or fried chicken, that you know you shouldn’t eat again but you will anyway because it tastes so good. The action trajectory moves from the forceful (McLaine hurling a villain into the air with his car) to the sublime (McLaine destroying a helicopter with a police car) to the ridiculous (McLaine versus a military plane).

The movie moves at a hectic pace similar to Die Hard With a Vengeance, stopping after 40 minutes for a pit stop (AKA extra plot details) and then resuming business again racing to the final showdown and the inevitable Yippee-Ki-Yay. . . . you know the rest. But this is a different Die Hard, this is Die Hard on a cyclopean scale. The villains aren’t just taking on New York, their taking on America in its entirety. Mr McLaine has come a long way since the Nakatomi milieu of the first Die Hard.

Gratefully, the McLaine character is mostly unchanged. The epitome of resilience, he has the same attitude and world view, except now he’s a seasoned cop and even more world weary than previous. He tells his (surprisingly effective) sidekick that being an everyman action hero isn’t all that its cracked up to be, that you don’t get the money and the women, that he’s never chosen to save the day, he’s just always been in the wrong place at the wrong time. There’s the funny one liners that open and bookend each fantastic action sequence and each situation where we see him blow away a bad guy, thrust another down some stairs or give an Asian babe the extreme reverse in Tender Loving Care.

As for my fears regarding the potential Buffy/Mary Jane hybrid: These were not realised. It seems that the film makers have decided to make some sort of humorous protest against what has now become the clichéd intolerably inane action heroine. Has Hollywood forgotten how great Ripley was in the Aliens saga or Sarah Connor in the Terminator series? The aforementioned pulchritudinous Asian henchwoman (Maggie Q) takes as much as she gives in the violence stakes. With John McLaine not even subconsciously hesitating to apply grievous bodily harm and then proceeding to less than tactfully inform her lover (the main villain) of her demise. As for McLaine’s daughter, she exhibits the same attitude as her father, both verbally and physically with the main villain sardonically asking his henchmen if their sure they can deal with her. Don’t worry she doesn’t save the day.

There are two weaknesses in this movie. The first is the villain. He’s not a bad villain. He’s just not as good as his previous Die Hard antagonists. He lacks the acting quality and presence (and therefore evil glee) of Alan Rickman (Die Hard) and Jeremy Irons (Die Hard 3) or the physical threat of William Sandler (Die Hard 2). But this is not entirely the actors fault; after all he is playing a computer nerd. It would have been more useful had the Maggie Q character not been killed halfway through. That may have provided a more thrilling showdown at the end. The second weak point is the ridiculous action sequence of McLaine versus the military plane, which borders on the inane. The audience including myself were not impressed. It seemed totally out of kilter with anything else in the movie or even the series for that matter. For the above reasons one star must be removed!

All in all this is a great action movie, with action sequences that will satisfy the thirst of those who have waited a long time to see a well rounded movie where stuff gets blown up. Its well worthy of the big screen and the money paid to see it. Mr Wiseman has done well and may possibly one day stand alongside the Cameron’s and McTiernan’s of this world. Hmmm . . . Well. Anyway, my faith in cinema (the action genre anyway) is partially restored. And maybe, just maybe this is a sign of things to come. If they do make another Die Hard I would love to see Edgar “Hot Fuzz (great action for a spoof movie)” Wright or Juan Carlos “28 Weeks Later (28 Days Later on crack)” Fresnadillo, at the helm. Or maybe even Michael Bay!! Bring on Transformers!

Mr McLaine is in his fifties now and maybe there shouldn’t be any more Die Hard movies (note the absence of the white vest). I mean did we really think that John McLaine could successfully take on terrorists for a fourth time? Yippee-Ki-Yay. . . . .

Nathaniel Davis