Matt Farrell (Justin Long, the Mac computer guy): "You just killed that helicopter with a car." McClane (Bruce Willis, of course): "I was out of bullets." As Willis ages, it seems, his franchise grows more juvenile.
The above example, the helicopter-car-kill, must transcend its absurdity and into pure hard-core glory. Most of the time, it does. See, this is a PG-13 world, one in which bullets only make henchmen fall down, where there's a quota on dangerous four-letter words - rendering a hero whose tag line is an MF bomb seemingly impotent.
In the current drought of good action films, or any blockbuster that isn't supernaturally laden, a new carries the weight of not only Bruce Willis's career, but perhaps the genre's future. The first movie remains a classic, because we weren't sure its hero would actually survive. McClane still bleeds when pricked, and he emerges from the bullet-riddled tower limping and exhausted.
Instead of gadgets, had its center set on individuals. Tough-as-nails guys, sure, but human nonetheless. Here, Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant), a hacker spurned by the U.
S. government, decides to enact revenge on Uncle Sam by performing a "Fire Sale," a massive computer infrastructure shutdown designed to cause mass chaos and, incidentally, allow Gabriel to walk away with a crap-load of cash. Olyphant is disappointing, nearly wasted as the archenemy, much less powerful than his antagonist in the comedy The Girl Next Door and even his protagonist on HBO's "Deadwood.
" He's no Alan Rickman (the original villain). But Live Free or focuses less on a chief villain and more on its peripheral characters. At times, the Mac guy's nonstop presence threatens to turn the solo show into a buddy-cop movie, but luckily he never gets too annoying.
He forms a partnership with McClane as they run across much of the East Coast trying to stop a hacker-induced Armageddon, killing helicopters, people, bridges, and even some laws of physics. The two aren't as dynamic a match as an equally magnetic baddie pair - though what Willis gives us isn't a short fuse, just not entirely explosive. As for the grizzled McClane, age might have taken away some of his mobility, but the no-nonsense attitude seems more fitting for the old man.
He's the veteran cop who knows he can get the job done without all the state-of-the-art bullshit, a rugged individualist whose apparently inept system threatens to bring him down. And, ultimately, the film is successful because it's mimetic of his journey. The filmmakers throw McClane all the makings of a modern techno thriller, then have him dismantle them the old-fashioned way.
McClane eliminates henchmen sporting almost superhero-like fighting skills with a simple bullet or kick to the face and hacks the conspiring computer geeks by arcane sweating machismo. Live Free or Die Hard won't make as much money as its web-slinging or robot-morphing competition, but it proves that, in aims of producing adrenaline-pumping film, sometimes all you need are guts and a few well-executed car chases. Perhaps the classic action film won't die hard after all.
Matt Farrell (Justin Long, the Mac computer guy): "You just killed that helicopter with a car.
