Die Hard 4.0

(20th Century Fox)

Run Time: 128 mins, M, Action
Starring: Justin Long, Maggie Q, Bruce Willis, Mary Winstead, Timothy Olyphant
Directed by: Len Wiseman

If you are reading this, I reckon you fall into one of three categories. Broad generalisation is probably not the best way to start a critical dissertation, to be sure, but this is Die Hard 4.0 we are talking about here… You have either just seen the movie, and are keen to see if the ITM reviewer holds a similar opinion to yourself. Or, you saw the trailer a few weeks ago, and got all kind of excited, hoping that, like, when John McLean kills a helicopter with a car, as happens in the trailer, that that isn’t the best bit… And finally you might fall into the category of haters, with no intention of ever seeing this film, but your lust for schadenfreude has you reading reviews of movies that could well get ripped apart by an aspiring web based hack.

No such luck for the last group here, but for the first and second thirds of my audience – know this – Die Hard 4.0 is way better than you thought it would be, and you were already going to go and see it.

The concept of this movie even being made in this post Snakes On A Plane world is ludiacris. Surely audience don’t like being taken for new adventures in flogging a cash cow? Of course, that comes at a time where bullets fired and massive explosions are at an all-time low on cinema screens. Sure, the Transporter franchise has been cashing in slowly in the mean time, but the action film genre has been diminished back to the C grade for the most part in the last 10 years.

Luckily for us, Die Hard 4.0 doesn’t just resurrect the action genre in all of its glory, with more bullets fired, elaborate destructions of complex infrastructure and corny one liners per minute than anyone has dished up to us since probably True Lies. Most outstandingly though, this is one of the few films to ever touch on the geekdom that is the Internet. From War Games to Hackers, The Net to Firewall (though the latter had a hard time getting its message through to audiences..), Hollywood has always been a little afraid of broaching our new found computer age… Die Hard 4.0 kicks that notion in the face.

An elaborate, intricate and impeccably planned bad guy has set about shutting down the entire united states, just by employing a decent team of l33t h4×0rz and taking everyone completely by surprise. John McLean, now far older, pudgier and crankier than he was back when he was Dieing Hard the first three times is just working as a regular cop, and gets sent out, past his knock off time, to protect a young college computer programmer. Gun battles and explosions ensue (indeed, the first explosion in the movie occurs within the first 2 minutes of the credits starting), and what unfolds next is one of the more captivating Hollywood blockbusters in years.

The story itself plays out like a really good computer game – puzzles must be overcome as well as out and out fight sequences, leading up to an eventual big boss. Scenery changes, but there are always the trademarks – elevator shafts, empty basements, being shot at from above, racing a car around a city… its all in there, and the only thing that is certain is that the game that comes to the Xbox will actually miss all of that point and join the ranks of terrible movie licence. Regardless, the on screen walk through gives you everything you need.

The most surprising element of this film was the makeup of the ‘terrorist’. In this day and age, it would have been so easy for them to have had a character being a disgruntled middle eastern male… Most Die Hard films have pushed the patriotic American hero aspect quite liberally, and to find that instead, that Die Hard 4.0 challenges these notions – one specific reference to Hurricane Katrina in particular – shows an immense display of tact and guile in bucking what was almost the expected trend. Instead the bad guy is one from within, a young, white male with only a little bit of bruised pride to carry his path to destruction of all, and the film is all the more better for it.

And its the surprises that make this movie great. All of the players do their jobs well – Bruce Willis is exemplary in his signature roles reprisal, Justin Long (Crossroads, That 70’s Show) as the young kid who is dragged along for the ride adorable enough to overcome any of the slight holes in his characters development, and the stoic, almost creepy Timothy Olyphant takes a bland role and adds as much spice as he can without the producers noticing… OK so very little could be done with a net based terrorist, but he deserves a mention anyway… The production is superb, and whilst the blue-filtered camera’s at first throw you, they become less overbearing after a while.

Die Hard 4.0 is a fantastically fun film, harking back to the days where guns were shot, buildings blown up, and terrorist plots foiled by single cops who just want to reuinte their familys at Xmas. If you weren’t going to like this, you weren’t going to see it. For everyone else, this rules.

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