A funny thing happens in action movies. Drivers forget how to use their brakes, on-the-fly coding comes with its own instant GUI, and a 52-year-old bald dude that says “jerk off” an awful lot saves the country from terrorists for the fourth time. No action hero is as endearing and tangible as Bruce Willis’ John McClane, simply a pragmatic guy who respects the economy of words, uttering comical catch phrases after inopportune moments (who else makes “yippie ki yay” sound like a warcry?). McClane even has a fear of flying, enforcing his everyday-man persona. He’s a father, with cutie pie Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Death Proof, Final Destination 3) as his estranged yet apple-doesn’t-fall-far-from-the-tree daughter. He’s a cop, er, Lieutenant Detective, and it’s his job that gets him into trouble this time, on assignment for a pick up and drop off of a hacker suspect Matt Farrell (Justin Long, the Mac commercial guy who, through imdb I found portrayed the beau of both Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan in Crossroads and Herbie Fully Loaded respectively which tells me the guy knows comedy). As soon as McClane arrives at the techie’s tenement, they get shot at, things explode, bad guys drop like flies. McClane is goood. From then on, it’s non-stop action with wilder and crazier and REAL (not CG) stunts. And oh, the violent vehicular damage galore! There’s a battle between car and helicopter and an 18-wheeler face-off with a F-35 joint strike fighter jet and no, this isn’t Transformers, McClane is at the wheel.

Another constructed cinematic coincidence occurs with characters named Gabriel, you know the fallen angel, Left Hand of God. Kinda like Sneakers, the antagonist in Live Free or Die Hard is someone who originally wished to help society, then goes wiggy after his altruistic efforts are thwarted. Hawaii-born Timothy Olyphant, who is in two of my all-time favorite actiony movies Go! and Gone in 60 Seconds, does a good job of being tall (haha) and stern, definitely focused, which is pretty much all that’s asked of him in this role. Critics may give him flack for not being menacing enough, but come on, he was supposed to be a former Software Engineer. Besides, McClane’s foes are usually brainiacs not badasses.

Other featherweight actors supplying support are Cliff Curtis (Three Kings, The Fountain) as the sagacious FBI official Bowman, Sung Kang (Better Luck Tomorrow as Bowman’s bitch, Hawaii-born/raised Maggie Q (of former Hong Kong fluff fame like Naked Weapon, Hollywood fluff like Mission Impossible III kicks ass in one of the craziest scenes with a SUV in an elevator shaft and unabashed 60s-70s style “sexist” smackdown flair. The cameo by Kevin Smith (Clerks 2) as a paranoid recluse is a little off kilter, but is an understandable interjection, suspending insight into tech geek mindbumps, of which there are a lot of, so non-nerds just try to keep up.

So what’s the catalyst for property damage this time? In Live Free or Die Hard, Thomas Gabriel (Olyphant) sets off a “Fire Sale”, a three-step process to ruling the Nation for a brief amount of time by enlisting unsuspecting hackers to write spots of code which Gabriel’s team fuses and forges to essentially shut down all nationwide computer-run facilities. This includes Wall Street, public utilities, satellite communications; America is screwed. Gabriel’s goal is mainly a “told you so/up yours” to his former employers and the government who ridiculed his warnings and pleas for supplemental security. An added bonus is downloading the entire nation’s financial records in order to anonymously skim billions off for himself. To quote Chris, Die Hard enemies are always all about the money, which makes Live Free or Die Hard’s tagline “In McClane We Trust” all the more poignant. Also trust that Live Free or Die Hard is an excellent summertime kinetic joyride that will deliver everything you expect from the Die Hard series and much much more. Yippie Ki Yay Motherfu–!

About the Author

Kris Kobayashi-Nelson says these directors/screenwriters rarely disappoint: Peter Greenaway, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Gus van Sant. Gregg Araki. Kris claims that Jake Gyllenhaal, Cillian Murphy, Desmond Harrington and Casey Affleck are much more than pretty faces.