Live Free or Die Hard: John McClane Lite

Here’s the good news: Live Free or Die Hard packs a hard action wallop, offering up the biggest thrills so far this summer. That’s not necessarily a high water mark, in this ho-hum blockbuster season.

What sets the fourth installment of the series apart from such dismal dreck as Pirates or Fantastic Four is that the majority of the action in Die Hard—from an amazing overhead shot of mass motor destruction to a nail-biter of a chase in a Washington DC tunnel—is done with real stunts. In an age of CGI car crashes and digital explosions, it’s great to see real stuntmen taking a plunge from a helicopter and smacking into a moving car.

This time out, Bruce Willis’ iconic everyman John McClane is—duh—in the wrong place at the wrong time when he escorts a whiny hacker (Justin Long, the dude from the Mac commercials) to DC. Naturally, as soon as McClane shows up, the bullets start to fly. You see, Long has inadvertently aided in a massive cyber terrorist plot that aims to make Y2K fears come true by means of mass pandemonium, loss of utilities and a whole shitload of car crashes.

In the process, McClane bumps heads with the terrorist leader (Timothy Olyphant), who seems to have an endless sea of cronies for McClane to cap and maim. And damn does he have a great go at it, offering up some fantastic set pieces that send bodies flying, vehicles exploding and audiences screaming “Yippie kay yay, mother…”
Nope. Not in this Die Hard, the first in the bloody and profane series to receive a PG-13, which set the IMDB nerds into panicked fits. These worries were indeed founded. John McClane is a foul-mouthed motherfucker. When he shoots or gets shot, there’s always a gush of blood and a smarmy wisecrack.

For all the bloody violence, the previous Die Hard films were extremely conscious of consequences. Whether it was a hostage’s brains splattering or a terrorist’s knees exploding, the realistic death sent tremors into an audience that is weaned on inconsequential violence, setting the first three films apart from standard matinee fare. Here, though, death and destruction is an afterthought as hundreds of commuters are killed in grandiose Michael Bay fashion—with a shrug. Capable director Len Wiseman (Underworld) does a great job making it look pretty, but also seems to think his audience has a bone in its brain.

Live Free is obviously an R-rated film that was watered down in post-production, evidenced by sloppy editing and quick jumps away from carnage. Willis’ usual foul-mouthed dialogue is also poorly edited, and the weak attempt at changing the frequent use of “fuckhead” to “jughead” makes it look like a bad kung fu dub. Moreover, when added together, the obvious edits and cuts make the film look suspiciously like it’s being viewed edited for cable, and a lot of it looks ridiculous (and will make fans salivate for an unrated DVD).

Also ridiculous is an over-the-top Harrier jet chase that ups the ante of cheese and becomes the film’s weakest (and most expensive moment). Where the rest of the film relies on old-fashioned stunt work, this climactic sequence is rife with bad CGI and takes away from the great action sequences that preceded. This unnecessary sequence brings the amped-up action to a screeching halt.

But the real downside to Live Free is the fact that it only sometimes feels like a Die Hard movie. Make no mistake, this is a fantastic popcorn action flick, but it’s also rife with boring villains spitting technobabble. Willis still has the action chops, but for the most part he just seems to be playing a comic book version of McClane, foregoing his everyman image as he gets a little too Navy SEAL. His one-liners and zingers are almost entirely absent, and when he fires out a snide remark after dropping someone down an elevator shaft, it just makes you long for more.

Watching a Die Hard movie without gore and f-bombs is like watching James Bond drink malt liquor. It’s satisfying, but there’s certainly something missing.
But these are all afterthoughts. Until the ill-conceived climax, Live Free offers up eye-popping action, and the plot only serves as a reason for Willis to speed from one spectacular violent confrontation to another. It’s a perfect summer movie, loaded with buttery goodness, amazing stunts and its fair share of jolts.
If only it felt like a Die Hard movie.