A Good Day to Die Hard
Buckle up for what could very well be my longest massacre yet. Many who know me also know my love for Die Hard. I don't even celebrate my birthday. Instead I celebrate surviving for another year, overcoming obstacles, facing fears, and generally not dying hard....
I fucking love Die Hard for the same reason many people have deemed it the best action movie of all time. If you are one of those people who are like "what's the big deal with Die Hard? I thought that movie was terrible" get the fuck out of here right now before you end up like Takagi.
He gets murdered
If you are still reading, come with me as I explain the dream shattering shitfest that is the fifth installment in the saga of John McClane defying death in the most uneasy manner.
The Good
This guy
That's John fucking McClane. He's older, wiser, and balder.
He's a bit of a badass.
Oh were you waiting for more good stuff? Nope. That's it. Bruce Willis is always John McClane. He knows how to play the character. He's aged and it shows in his physicality and his mannerisms, which I think is fantastic. Nobody is the same person 20 years later. We evolve and mature. So has John McClane, as shown in these latest sequels.
Well, old habits die....um....hard....
The Massacre
Unlike many, I actually enjoyed Live Free or Die Hard. I was afraid when I saw that McClane would be fighting a jet, and while it was a bit over the top, I felt like it fit the story. The issue with sequels is going bigger being better. Every Die Hard has gone bigger than its predecessor which hasn't always been a bad thing. What you have is the most basic of plots, after all. What distinguishes Die Hard from other films is how relatable, unique and invested the characters are. No wasted characters! That is the key to a great movie. In the two best Die Hard films, every character that is given a name has something valuable to contribute at some point, be it a quote, action, clue or some kind of tension relief.
This is Uli, a henchman in Die Hard, and he is stealing a candy bar while waiting to kill some pesky cops!
This is Ellis, also in Die Hard, and snorting cocaine isn't the only mistake he is making tonight!
Yeah this is the same asshole who shuts down the Containment unit in Ghostbusters
Even Viggo the Carpathian is in the mix!
The best films have a quality that reflects a genuine love of the story and the characters playing it out. They aren't just thrown in, one dimensional people we can forget about as soon as we see them. In the same way, the best sequels take the source material and treat it with respect, building upon the established characters while exploring some new facet of their personality.
Take Aliens for example. Taking the kind of tense, rugged future atmosphere, the terror, the constant sense of danger and isolation from the first film and applying it to a larger scale. Then the character of Ellen Ripley, now safe and sound and home again must face the turmoil of her cryogenic freeze taking her a lifetime. The events of the first film leave her more alone in a future where her daughter has aged and died. Then she faces the choice of returning to the planet that started the horror. She is forced to grow, to adapt to the new world and move on. You get the picture?
Get out of this Blog you BITCH!
Anyway, enough setup. A Good Day to Die Hard didn't give a fuck about any of that. While I wouldn't say that this Die Hard was as big as the fourth, it certainly tried in the most contrite, incoherent story line this franchise has ever seen. Here, allow me to break it down for you:
1. John McClane's other estranged child (because that worked for the last one, right?!), his son, Jack, has gotten himself arrested in Russia. John McClane boards a plane and flies out there to find some way of rescuing his son.
2. Some Russian activist, named Kamarov has also been arrested by the Russian Prime Minister(?), an old friend turned enemy who is demanding a file.
3. Jack has purposely gotten himself arrested to implicate himself with Kamarov, counting on Russian the judicial system to put them side by side in the courtroom because
4. Jack is an undercover CIA operative whose mission is to break Komarov out and secure his file for the United States. An operation which hinges on
5. A completely unforseeable terrorist attack which in itself is poorly planned: Blowing up a wall of the courtroom, killing almost everyone within except for the key characters allowing the terrorists to enter, take Kamarov in an armored big rig truck to somehow evade the police.....
Only they didn't count on Jack McClane!
And Jack McClane didn't count on John McClane!
That's the first fifteen minutes...
I wish this were real
1. John McClane's other estranged child (because that worked for the last one, right?!), his son, Jack, has gotten himself arrested in Russia. John McClane boards a plane and flies out there to find some way of rescuing his son.
2. Some Russian activist, named Kamarov has also been arrested by the Russian Prime Minister(?), an old friend turned enemy who is demanding a file.
3. Jack has purposely gotten himself arrested to implicate himself with Kamarov, counting on Russian the judicial system to put them side by side in the courtroom because
4. Jack is an undercover CIA operative whose mission is to break Komarov out and secure his file for the United States. An operation which hinges on
5. A completely unforseeable terrorist attack which in itself is poorly planned: Blowing up a wall of the courtroom, killing almost everyone within except for the key characters allowing the terrorists to enter, take Kamarov in an armored big rig truck to somehow evade the police.....
Only they didn't count on Jack McClane!
And Jack McClane didn't count on John McClane!
That's the first fifteen minutes...
Come out to Die Hard 5, we'll have a good time, enjoy a new adventure...
The rest of the film is just a race through the disgusting country of Russia full of homages to the first Die Hard film and father/son angst issues the ultimately resolve in a renewed bond over a common love for killing bad guys. Oh, did I mention it all ends at Chernobyl?
Fuck Russia
Yeah. Chernobyl. Because they needed some kind of cool place for a finale in Russia, I guess. Maybe that isn't so bad, right? It kind of fit the overall terrorist plot, but the real issues are in the films execution.
Every actor except for Mggie Q's single minute scene and Bruce Willis, sucked asshole. Especially Jai Courtney who played Jack.
Guess what, they don't kill him off, no matter how much you want them to
His instant issue with his father in the middle of Russia, repeating over and over "Goddamn you John" with the conviction of a middle school play actor, and his tough guy persona, never felt right. It was like watching amateur hour. Even the shitty terrorist villains were better at conveying some sense of emotion with English as their second language.
Another issue is the element of fun. John McClane has fun killing bad guys. He ends up tortured and beaten, bloody and emotional by the end, but when he is killing, he finds some kind of sick humor in it. In this movie it just felt like a chore. "Oh ok, terrorist plot, I'll get it. Don't worry about it. No problem."
Then there is the dubbing. Over and over again, lines from the beginning of the film and some lines straight out of Die Hard 4 crop up during some action sequence, as if they needed McClane to say...anything! Why not just throw more random shit in there!
Why not? Fuck it!
The entire film felt like a phoned in job. Mistakes in continuity and judgement. Zip tied hands suddenly not tied at all! A desperate need to get into the vault before someone dies, so lets climb around until we are on the roof and somehow find our way inside! Driving a Land Rover (or whatever fucking truck) over a gratuitous amount of cars in traffic! Guns are easy to find pretty much anywhere in Russia, apparently. Even the R rating couldn't redeem it. I don't even see why it got the R rating except for a few "Fucks" in the dialogue. Out of the entire film, the highlight was John McClane flipping the bird to an exploding helicopter as he jumps to safety.
I'm going to blame this hell on a few people, because I don't think just the director is at fault here. If this situation was anything like Live Free or Die Hard, the director's cut could be better (though I seriously doubt it with such a shitty plot from the get go.)
John Moore directed this. Who? Yeah I had to look him up too. He's directed some other bullshit I have no interest in seeing. I did see Behind Enemy Lines. It was ok, I guess. I've only seen it once and never had the desire for a second viewing.
I think I found the real problem here.
Skip Woods wrote this failure. He seems to specialize in ruining things. Here are the movies he is 'Known For' according to IMDB. I'll link you to their Rotten Tomatoes rating's so you can understand just how bad this guy is.
If you enjoy any of those movies, chances are good that you fall into the fabled Nascar fan category, in which case, People like you are ruining quality movie making.
The Verdict
Check this out:
Give me a break, I was a kid
That's the cover of a Die Hard story I wrote a long time ago. I dug it out of storage to remind myself what real love for something can produce. It's no masterpiece, and a video game ended up stealing my title anyway,
Who the hell would play this on Gamecube?
but reading through it, the plot is pretty exciting and suitable to the franchise.
Here it is: John McClane's best friend, Al Powell (of the first film and twinkie eating moment in Die Harder) is killed on duty. The film open with McClane mid action, taking down the killer, Adrienne (a man with a possibly female name gave McClane something to taunt with). McClane transports this killer to a new maximum security prison on an island whereupon it is revealed that Adrienne had intended to be taken there all along. With an escape in place, and a heist of confidential information with which to blackmail numerous public officials (including Holly Genaro, John's ex-wife), Adrienne breaks out of his cell and systematically works through the prison in a similar fashion to the young John McClane in Nakatomi tower. John, of course, tries to stop him, but with the release of the prisoners and Adrienne taking control of the prison, John must once again fight his way out of a tricky situation, or die trying. And die he does, in the end. Men like John McClane can't just fade away. They need an appropriate death at the hands of a capable enemy.
Here it is: John McClane's best friend, Al Powell (of the first film and twinkie eating moment in Die Harder) is killed on duty. The film open with McClane mid action, taking down the killer, Adrienne (a man with a possibly female name gave McClane something to taunt with). McClane transports this killer to a new maximum security prison on an island whereupon it is revealed that Adrienne had intended to be taken there all along. With an escape in place, and a heist of confidential information with which to blackmail numerous public officials (including Holly Genaro, John's ex-wife), Adrienne breaks out of his cell and systematically works through the prison in a similar fashion to the young John McClane in Nakatomi tower. John, of course, tries to stop him, but with the release of the prisoners and Adrienne taking control of the prison, John must once again fight his way out of a tricky situation, or die trying. And die he does, in the end. Men like John McClane can't just fade away. They need an appropriate death at the hands of a capable enemy.
Respect is given to all of the source material and characters while providing a fresh adventure and the emotions associated with facing death and loss. In my mind, that will always be how the saga ends, unless someone can do better.
Ultimately, A Good Day to Die Hard leaves me wanting for a sixth movie to redeem the franchise but also bring closure. It also leaves me pissed off because I wrote a better Die Hard when I was 11.
I used to think that Die Hard 2: Die Harder was the worst in the franchise, until now. So thanks a lot A Good Day to Die Hard! You've given my Die Hard Day an agonizing ending until a sixth film comes along to hopefully redeem the franchise.
