Die Hard 5: A Good Day To Die Hard
Every franchise sells out, sooner or later. Too many sequels, too many attempts to replicate the magic and success of a classic first movie. Case in point with The Die Hard Franchise. They indeed had a nice long run, with Bruce Willis capping asshole bad guys left and right while simply refusing to give up himself in an amazing display of both working class charm and All American heroics. Despite taking a stumbling step with Part 3, Part 4 showed a rather surprising return to form as Willisâ John McClane took on Internet hackers who were bent on destroying our entire way of life thanks to our dependency on online servers literally controlling everything in our existence. The only questionable element that was carried over from Part 3 was in the installation of a sidekick to help McClane through his adventure and while Sam Jackson in Part 3 was a mixed success, Part 4 gave us dorky computer geek Justin Long who at least guided both us and McClane through the tech savvy terrain that we were mostly unfamiliar with. Willis had publicly stated his intentions of doing a âsecond trilogyâ in the Die Hard saga with plans for a Parts 4, 5, AND 6, but as of right now the plans for Part 6 are indefinitely on hold after the crash and burn train wreck results of Part 5 which was released in 2013. The sidekick factor was used here yet again only instead of hacker geek Long (and Mary Elizabeth Winstead as daughter Lucy who cameos briefly here), we get Jai Courtney (who?) essaying the never before featured role of McClaneâs son Jack (aka John McClane Jr.), an apparent fuck up and shame to the family whom McClane learns has just been imprisoned in Russia on a murder charge. McClane (who obtains the information from sources within his own NYPD) decides that itâs still his responsibility as a father to head on over to Moscow and try to find some way to get his wayward kid out of there and back home. This marks Major Mistake Number 1 in the Die Hard sequel meter when we realize that this entry actually takes place almost entirely in the country of Russia, basically signifying that the All American flavor of the earlier movies was now officially being stomped out in favor of having McClane playing Stranger In A Strange Land. Perhaps this is what led to the film bombing in American cinemas (when a successful US run is vital to any movie) but still wound up being a moderate financial success on the international market which again is counterproductive of almost everything that Die Hard is supposed to represent since well, John McClane is one of our own. When McClane arrives to the Moscow courthouse where his son is being tried, suddenly thereâs a series of explosions which causes plenty of holes in the building that are useful for escaping from which is exactly what McClane Jr. does along with another prisoner and when McClane finally catches up with his wayward son (whom he had presumed was either a drug dealer or drug addict), it turns out that he is none other than an American CIA agent under deep cover on an elaborate mission of great importance and now with his Dad managing to catch up with him, Junior canât think of any better idea than to throw him in the back seat so that he can tag along and perhaps provide a bit of help since after all, he IS John McClane of Nakatomi Plaza fame (and many other terrorist killing adventures). This represents Major Mistake Number 2 (and 3) as one thing that Die Hard is most definitely NOT (and should never be mistaken for) is James Bond or even The Bourne Identity for that matter (since judging from the early scenes itâs possible that Junior was somehow âreprogrammedâ Bourne style for this line of work) and involving Willisâ McClane in some sort of cloak and dagger spy plot is just not the type of change up that the doctor ordered since McClaneâs gift was always in being that monkey wrench in the terroristsâ intentions that was completely unexpected and for which they had no contingency plan for (always to his advantage) but here the way we are rushed through the opening minutes of the story to set things up to the point where we come into it betrays the calm, sometimes mundane way that the first 4 films had eased us into their stories, usually by having McClane dealing with family matters before falling into Terrorist Nirvana. That brings us to the final (and biggest) Major Mistake that is made here. As we all know, Die Hard has a long and proud tradition of giving us top rank lead villains in EVERY film, a legacy that started off memorably enough with Rickman and carried on honorably with Sadler, Irons and even Olyphant who commendably managed to give us something different all while still staying within the basic parameters. Here, the big villain isâŚwho knows? The script prefers to play guessing games and throw in a series of twists to keep us wondering just who is the real main bad guy here with the best hint to keep in mind that (at least in this movie) ALL Russians are inherently bad even if theyâre working on opposite sides of each other. This of course completely destroys the story stability that worked so well when we knew who the clear cut bad guy was in the early going (although betrayals by people whom we thought to be good guys were not necessarily out of the equation). By not allowing the viewer to know 100% for sure who the direct threat is, this allows the film to focus more time for the so called âreconciliationâ between father and son with McClane becoming especially agitated by his sonny boyâs insistence on calling him âJohnâ instead of âDadâ (an issue which he had with his daughter in Part 4), only here the bonding usually takes place after some ridiculous shootout / stunt sequence where the two are laying around afterwards all wounded and bleeding only for them to pull it together whenever they see any more bad guys coming near. Itâs rather sad when the only bad guy here that makes any kind of an impression is actually a henchman in Radivoje Bukvicâs Alik, a guy who brings a bit of charisma and intensity to his screentime while thankfully not shoving his âRussiannessâ down our throats, bringing a nice clear accent to his English dialogue with only a twinge of his natural speaking inflections making its way in there. As for the rest of the bad guys, itâs all one round after another of âwhat did he just say?â over and over again and for those who enjoy reading endless subtitles whenever they speak in their natural dialect, youâre in for a treat here as at some points the subtitles go by so quickly that youâre glad to have a pause button. Starting with an overlong car chase sequence in the streets of Moscow (although most of the film was shot in Hungary) followed by a massive shootout in a CIA safehouse where McClane and Son engage in some impossible stuntwork that would kill any real world human being (a motif that unfortunately started in Part 3 that had continued through Part 4 up to now) with it all leading up to a big confrontation in friggin Chernobyl of all places (where apparently the bad guys had played some kind of role in âcausingâ the infamous meltdown) as we watch another prolonged battle where The McClanes and the villains engage each other over some dormant weapons grade uranium (the kind that makes nuclear bombs) with little to no concern for the known effects of the radiation that still hangs over that area to this day and we still wonder just exactly why Die Hard has jumped the shark and lowered itself to this level except for having had the (obvious) plot conceit that The McClanes are slowly but surely working out their father and son issues (something that could have been done just as easily within the context of a story that was set on American soil) all while battling bad guys that could very well have been anybody and were obviously not as important as us seeing the legendary action hero John McClane teaming up with and bantering with his only son. And THAT is where the betrayal of the legacy that is Die Hard comes into play by featuring villains that are not all that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, something that betrays our memories of Hans and Simon Gruber, the sadistic Col. Stuart and even the high strung, control freak computer genius Thomas Gabriel, all strongly etched in stone as quality villains in a proud tradition that is smashed here in favor of boring plot twists involving boring actors as even Bruce Willis (looking more and more like Clint Eastwood every day) canât save this one from going straight down the toiletâŚ
2/10