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1988's "Die Hard" was a study in simplicity, a veritable exercise in Aristotle's Unities of time, place and action (a cop is trapped for one night in a building besieged by terrorists). It was also a movie that spawned an entire subgenre of "Die Hard on a..." imitators: "Die Hard on a Boat/Plane/Train" ("Under Siege", "Passenger 57", "Under Siege 2"). Each was of increasingly poor quality with the exception of the best of the bunch, 1994's "Speed" ("Die Hard on a Bus"). Amusingly, even the "Die Hard" franchise itself lost sight of its own gimmick with a host of ill-titled sequels. 1988's "Die Hard 2: Die Harder" was "Die Hard at an Airport" and, I guess, 1995's brain-teaser "Die Hard With a Vengeance" was "Die Hard in New York". Now we have the fourth in the series with the appropriately messy title "Live Free or Die Hard" and, in the tradition of the series, this one would have to be called "Die Hard on the Internet". This outing finds the franchise stripped of all its trademarks (supporting cast, director) with one very notable exception: Bruce Willis. Turns out Mr. Willis is all you need for a good "Die Hard" movie.
When "Live Free" opens, we find Detective John McClane estranged from his college-age daughter Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, a chip off the ol' cop). Clearly Bonnie Bedelia, who played McClane's wife in the first two films, decided to sit this one out, so Lucy is given the job of playing with the Gennero-McClane moniker. No sooner does Lucy give dad the brush-off than McClane is called to pick up a young computer hacker named Matt Farrell (the omnipresent Justin Long, happily avoiding the annoying sidekick role). When the routine assignment turns into an action-rific shoot-out, McClane finds himself the only man who can save America from a band of cyber-terrorists bent on bringing the national economy to its knees.
The plot - which involves a virus called a "fire sale" (everything must go) - requires more than just a suspension of disbelief. It requires that you to remove the word "why" from your vocabulary entirely (a prime example, after the communications network is brought to its knees, in one extended scene, "On Star" still works). Lest you have a moment of the slightly overlong 140 minutes to think about the absurdity of the goings-on, the screenplay by Mark Bomback (from John Carlin's article "A Farewell to Arms") keeps the action coming at what can only be called full throttle. I would have thought helmer Len Wiseman (the "Underworld" movies) would have no business directing a "Die Hard", but he keeps the MTV-style jump-cuts to a minimum and stages some series-best action sequences. Happily, the filmmakers do as many practical stunts as possible (little to no CGI is used), but the action mounts in a series of increasingly preposterous set-pieces that range from the clever (a fire hydrant used to stop a helicopter) to the see-it-to-believe-it (a harrier jet vs. a semi).
Timothy Olyphant ("Deadwood") shows up as the film's villain, the uber-hacker Thomas Gabriel. Mr. Olyphant can't hold a candle to Alan Rickman's villain from the first film - especially with lines like "begin stage two" and "let me know when the download is at 20 percent". Throughout the film, McClane, with wisecracks galore, rarely loses the upper hand (though Maggie Q's Mai and Parkour expert Cyril Raffaelli prove to be worthy adversaries).
Despite the controversy around this fourth installment being rated PG-13, where the others were R, the film doesn't suffer for it. This may be due to the fact that you can get away with more with PG-13 now than you could back in the days of the original but, with the exception of McClane's trademark "Yippy Ki Yay, m-----f---er", you don't miss the permissiveness of the R.
It turns out, the "Die Hard" films are all about John McClane and, stripped of any remnants of past cast member, "Live Free" rests squarely on Mr. Willis' able shoulders. Embracing his baldness at last, Mr. Willis smirks and chuckles his way through the film like an old pal. He can hardly be bothered to follow the technobabble of the script which, after six seasons of "24", is almost unnecessary (McClane is, after all, the proto-Bauer). Detective McClane, it turns out, is like "Rocky". You can throw everything you have at him and he keeps getting up.
