Movie Review – Live Free or Die Hard (2007)

Director: Len Wiseman
Writer: Mark Bomback
Genre: Action/Adventure/Crime/Thriller

What’s It About

This part should be obvious, it’s Die Hard. There is a conflict and John McClane is there to save the day. This time it is on a national scale. Each Die Hard seems to be a bigger and bigger scope. The first one was in a building and only a few people were involved, the second one had lots of people on planes involved, and the third one had a whole city involved. Now, John McClane (Bruce Willis) has to save the entire country from the villain. Maybe not the whole country is involved, but most of it is. It is always about the bad guy wanting money and the good guy saving everyone and killing the bad guy. Standard Die Hard glory.

How’d They Act

Let’s save Bruce for last since he is the major actor. Timothy Olyphant plays Thomas Gabriel, the villain in this Die Hard romp. At first, it seemed as though he was not going to be a very good villain because of two things. First, his age is not where the previous villains were at. He almost seemed too young to be the bad guy, but they were able to make some history for him and make him seem a bit more established which made it ok that he was young I guess. He still could have been a little older in my opinion though. Secondly, he almost seemed too weak. In hand to hand combat, there was no doubt who would win between John McClane and Thomas Gabriel, but this is similar to the original. However, Gabriel did seem somewhat geeky. This of course goes along with the plot that involves mainly computer hacking. Olyphant overall did a great job as a villain. The role was an interesting one to play for a Die Hard villain, but Olyphant does a good job with what he was given. Don’t expect a performance like Alan Rickman in Die Hard, or Jeremy Irons in Die Hard with a vengeance. They were both excellent villains and truly lived up to the franchise. Justin Long plays Matt Farrell, a geek that helps start the chaos that ensues unintentionally. He is one of the good guys and the only hope besides McClane for saving the U.S. Justin Long may be a Mac, but he can act too. He does a real good job here, even though he does not step out of his comfort zone too much. He plays a nerdy tech geek that knows way too much about computers and is physically weak. He is the brains for McClane even. However, it is still obvious that McClane could save the day without Farrell since he is of course John McClane. Live Free or Die Hard is going to be the gig Justin Long needed to really come out of his shell and into the mainstream. This brings us to Bruce Willis himself. The only consistent actor throughout all of the Die Hards has been Bruce Willis. Obviously it would not be Die Hard without him, but he has always stayed the John McClane that we knew from the first movie. The only difference in this one is the PG-13 rating. He is not able to be quite as dark as he would normally be, but he still does a great job in the character. Willis is still good at the classic one liners and laughs. My favorite part is his reactions to each person’s death. Bruce Willis will always be John McClane to me.

Delivery

How spectacular was this movie you ask. Well, they went over the top a few times, but it is still Die Hard. In most action movies, you have to have parts that are not only impossible, but simply ridiculous just for entertainment’s sake. Live Free or Die Hard definitely lives up to this. There are times that you are watching, and you think to yourself “give me a break,” but it is great anyway. It was an interesting choice to go with a PG-13 rating. The series has always been R rated, but this one was obviously meant to win over more people in the box office because of its rating. I think that they must have made this decision very late in the process however, since I actually saw parts where it looked like they had dubbed over what Justin Long and Bruce Willis were actually saying. You could also tell that they tried not to have too much blood in the regular Die Hard fashion. This upset me at first, but it worked out well in the end. The biggest problem with PG-13 movies, is the teenagers in the theaters. It is often harder for them to get into the R-rated films and if they are there, they usually keep quite since they do not want to draw attention. Luckily there were not too many youngins in the theater so it was a pleasant Die Hard experience. The directing itself is basically what I would call “Die Hard directing.” Everything was pretty standard, but there was a lot of action and just a little bit of story line. Things did not always make since, but if you love Die Hard, you really don’t care at this point. It is just awesome anyway.

The Real Deal

I paid $10 for this movie to see it with teenagers and crazy Die Hard fans on opening night. I am going to see it again next week in the theaters for another $10 and I would probably see it again in the theaters. So I guess that explains whether or not I liked it. If you are a Die Hard fan you have to see this movie, but even people who are not familiar with the series could enjoy this film. Say it with me now, “please, please, please, give us a Die Hard 5!!!!”

The Skinny Version

Raw Score: 797,013
Sharon Movie? No

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