A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD – The Review

It’s really been twenty five years? Honestly? It’s been a quarter of a century since New Jersey Cop John McClane spent his Christmas holiday bleeding and barefoot taking down Hans Gruber and his international gang of thugs after they had taken over an office building in LA. Bruce Willis had done a couple of movies, but he was best known as a wise-guy private eye on ABCTV’s “Moonlighting”. The box office action smash of 1988 DIE HARD changed his career forever. Willis has been on a Hollywood A-lister ever since. And now we have him playing Det. McClane for the fifth time this Valentine’s Day in A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD. But he’s not keeping “la-la land” safe this time, he’s on the mean streets of Russia (the locale of many thrillers these days). And he’s not facing the baddies alone (well, he’s had partners in the last three installments). The next generation joins him in the form of brawny Jai Courtney (recently on the other side of the law in JACK REACHER) as John “Jack” McClane, Junior. Will the foreign location and the infusion of new blood revitalize this series of thrillers? Strap in and hang on to your bubushka!

GOOD DAY plunges us immediately into the former USSR during the opening titles. An ambitious politician is using the upcoming high-profile trial of a multi-millionaire, Komarov, to further his career. Cut to a flashy dance club where a young man opens fire on a patron. The shooter is captured and tells the authorities that the hit was brokered by the man on trial. Jump back to the USA where John McClane (Willis) is informed of the whereabouts of his estranged son Jack (Courtney): he’s been arrested for the club shooting. John gets a lift to the airport from concerned daughter Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and is soon in a cab crawling through Moscow traffic to locate his boy. Of course this is when heavily armed assassins attack the courthouse. Jack and Komarov escape during the melee and run into Poppa John. It’s revealed that Jack is actually an undercover CIA man. Seems Komarov has some vital info and needs to be spirited out of the country. Father and son team up for a series of shoot-outs, high-speed chases, and double and triple-crosses in a conspiracy that takes them from Moscow all the way to Chernobyl (yeah, that one). Looks like McClane’s overseas vacations are just as destructive as his cross-country jaunts

The cast doesn’t get much of a chance to flex their skills here as they barely have time to throw out a few lines before they’re on to another labored action set piece. Of course the main draw is Willis stepping back into his familiar screen persona. Unfortunately he can barely disguise his apathy toward all the pyrotechnics. He’s leaping, smirking, and carrying one big gun after another like so many other previous action flicks. Willis can still be a great screen presence as he proved in his engaged, energized performance in last year’s very original offering LOOPER (which almost made me forget his involvement in the hackneyed thriller COLD LIGHT OF DAY months later). The Die Hard flicks have become his back-up, go-to jobs in between his more risky films (he’s helped jump-start the careers of many great film makers). It just looks as if all the fun has been wrung out of the McClane. Courtney attempts to bring some new adrenaline to the proceedings, and he is plausible as a Willis offspring, but the scenes of family discord never really crackle. The re-airing of old dirty laundry while reloading their weapons becomes increasingly tiresome. One wonders if the studio is contemplating a spin-off franchise around the young spy. If they want to compete with Ethan Hunt, Jason Bourne, and the invigorated 007, then they’ll have to come up with better efforts than this. Unfortunately Winstead (so wonderful in last year’s SMASHED) is seen too briefly near the film’s start (we do hear her on the phone to Daddy and see her silently at the finale). Now father, son, and daughters against the evil forces might’ve been more compelling. The rest of the European cast mostly glare, gnash their teeth, and blast away at these meddlesome Westerners. No one’s near the caliber of Alan Rickman’s effete, snearing Gruber in the inaugural DIE HARD.

The main problems with this film seem to come from the way too convoluted for its own good script and the thudding direction. Allegiances change at the drop of the hat as double-dealing and back-stabbing occur again and again till our eyes glaze over in frustration. It’s not clever..it’s annoying. But most of the audience is here for the action, not the plot machinations and iin that department this movie disappoints consistently. The family reunites during a chace through the Moscow streets and highways that seems to never end with countless cars destroyed (enough to fill every Eastern European scrap yard). The editing is so quick and choppy that it becomes a challenge to follow along with the heroes (and where are the authorities during this destruction?). This technique becomes even worse during a chat between Jack and the CIA base with quick cuts of hand help camerawork in the cramped, dimly lit quarters (an attempt to ramp up the tension, perhaps). All the while the McClanes bounce about through walls and floors like rubber dolls somehow evading strains, separations, and broken limbs (there’s plenty of minor cuts and an occasional impacted piece of debris). I mean Willis is just short of 60 and he’s being spun and flung with little repercussions. Not even a couple of big, scary military choppers can pick up the pace. It’s all so tiresome that it feels twice as long as the film’s 95 minute running time. If this by-the-numbers, uninspired action programmer is the best that Fox can come up with, then let us hope that they allow John McClane to join Harry Callahan in movie cop Valhalla. Yippee-ki-yeah and happy trails!

1 Out of 5 Stars