Live Free or Die Hard

I remember watching the first Die Hard flick as a child and instantly becoming addicted. It rivals Robocop and the Terminator for best action film and continues to deliver a strong mix of solid pounding timeless one liners and thrilling death defying situations to this day. I was slightly distraught after hearing that the fourth installment in the Die Hard series was being released since the fourth installment in a franchise is often a slipshod affair, thrown together to make a quick and careless buck at the expense of its loyal fans (Hellraiser: Bloodline, Star Trek IV, and Alien Resurrection stand as exceptions). But after viewing Live Free or Die Hard, I sit content, happy in the knowledge that director Len Wiseman (Underworld) and screenwriter Mark Bomback (The Night Caller) crafted an entertaining film that has me hoping that one day we may be fortunate enough to see Die Hard 5: I Just Want Another Cigarette.

The fourth installment in a series is often free to discover a completely new situation for its characters, one that strays from the narrative threads that closely linked the first three films/novels/texts (God Emperor of Dune for instance). Live Free or Die Hard recognizes this potential and delivers a fresh situation full of politically relevant commentary, intriguing new characters, and delicate action sequences etched on rationally chaotic backdrops. It’s another acute adventure for street wise John McClane of the NYPD. And fortunately Bruce Willis delivers the goods, discovering that crisp, charming character he's crafted for years (to which he adds a fatherly nuance that can only be described as abrasively benign).

In 1988, not possessing an intricate knowledge of computers and the internet didn't stop John McClane from outwitting Hans Gruber, but in 2007, McClane's technological illiteracy leaves him handicapped. Fortunately, hacker Matt Farrell (Justin Long) tags along, providing McClane with the cyber-related-know-how he needs to save the world from brilliant computer programmer Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant). Gabriel has launched a Fire Sale attack on the United States which proceeds in three stages: eliminating the structures that facilitate a nation's transportation, erasing the nation’s financial records, and disengaging its utilities. The dynamic established between Willis and Long is cohesive enough to overcome Olyphant's solid but one-dimensional villainy, and their witty dialogues quaintly yet corrosively accentuates their generational and psychological fissures.

The message of the Die Hard films seem to be that life is rough and things often don't work out the way you won't them to, but, nevertheless, when you find yourself confronted with such realities, you've still gotta, what’s the phrase, keep on keeping on?

Note that the relationship between McClane and grown daughter Lucy McClane (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) provides Live Free or Die Hard with the same familial punch that gave the first two films their endearing touch, and there's a subtle reference to FBI agents Johnson and Johnson from the original. And McClane can now fly a helicopter.

Not bad.