Live Free or Die Hard
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Rated: PG-13
Cast: Bruce Willis, Justin Long
Director: Len Wiseman
WorkNameSort: Live Free or Die Hard
Our Rating: 3.00
For the record, Live Free or Die Hard is positively entertaining. Director Len Wiseman (the Underworld series) enthusiastically adheres to the series formula while updating the constant mayhem of action. As the Fourth of July weekend approaches, a technologically savvy consortium of sleekly attired baddies taps into America’s computer-hacking underground to solicit strings of security-breaching codes ‘ and then proceeds to execute the hackers. One of those is Matt Farrell (Justin Long), whom the FBI asks NYPD to pick up and chaperone to Washington, D.C. Bruce Willis’ John McClane ‘ busy spying on his daughter making out with a blockhead ‘ gets tapped for the grunt work, arriving at Farrell’s Camden, N.J., apartment just before the baddies arrive and start shooting and blowing the place to bits. Wiseman has this formula down pat. For Free‘s entire 130 minutes, McClane and his reluctant partner dodge helicopter fire, wave after wave of armed henchmen, a kung fu’savvy female baddie (Maggie Q) and foreign-speaking mercenaries hired by the head psycho in charge. Their endgame: to steal the country’s entire financial data. Their strategy: to take over the country’s electronic and communications infrastructure and bring technology to a sudden halt. For most of the briskly paced movie, they do one hell of a job of it.
This article appears in Jun 27 – Jul 3, 2007.