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Live Free Or Die Hard
Directed by: Len Wiseman
Starring: Bruce Willis
Genre:
Action-Adventure
Run Time: 130 min.
Release Date:
June 2007
On The Web:
Official
Site
Teaser:
Movie Trailer
Reviewed by
Byron Merritt |
Ready. Set. Action!
Action being the key word here. LIVE FREE OF DIE HARD (aka Die
Hard 4) is an action-fest filled with wonderfully similar themes
we’ve all seen in the first DIE HARD film. Bruce Willis (16
BLOCKS), of course, returns as officer-cum-detective John
McClane.
He’s beat. He’s tired. He’s beat tired. But family always comes first,
and McClane is first seen spying on his college daughter Lucy (Mary
Elizabeth Winstead, BOBBY),
trying to protect her from the wiles of the
world. Naturally Lucy despises his attempts to protect her and storms
off. Later, she will come to respect her father and proudly announce
that her last name isn’t Genero but McClane.
John then gets an assignment as a taxi. He’s told to pick up a computer
hotshot named Matthew Farrell (Justin Long,
THE BREAK UP) and bring him
to a special FBI task force that’s tracking a string of computer crimes
targeted at the American infrastructure. Once McClane and Matthew meet,
it rapidly becomes apparent that somebody wants Matthew dead. Bullets
fly. Bombs go off. McClane, again, is in way over his head ...exactly
where Die Hard fans want him.
A computer heist known as a “fire sale” is taking place in which
everything vital to U.S. survival gets shut down. Traffic. Television
and radio. Electricity. Everything that is currently run by high-tech
computers is going off-line. Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant) is the
bad-guy who is initially seen as a terrorist but is later found to have
financial aspirations (sound familiar?). When McClane becomes a pest,
Gabriel soon turns to kidnapping someone close to the detective’s heart.
McClane and Matthew race to save America (and a family member) from a
devastating computer meltdown. Car and helicopter chases, semi-truck and
harrier jet encounters, all build upon the other until the final,
fateful end.
The dialogue between the computer illiterate McClane and the gurus of
the internet are hilariously pulled off. The geeks can’t get to where
they need to be unless McClane blasts their way through, and McClane
doesn’t know what to do unless he’s told by the geeks.
A great fight sequence between Bruce Willis and Maggie Q (BALLS OF FURY)
is something to watch for, especially since Willis’ character ends up
back in an elevator shaft (homage to Die Hard 1). It’s also entertaining
to see Willis’ McClane get his butt stomped by the sexy Asian woman
...for a while.
And let’s not forget one of the coolest stunts seen on celluloid in some
time: a car launch and crashing into a helicopter. Although completely
unrealistic, it was amazingly awesome to watch.
This is something Die Hard fans have been waiting for; another film that
is overly-audacious and loaded with nonstop action scenes. It’s flat-out
fun!
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Image from Live Free Or
Die Hard
DVD cost: $27.99
Purchase:
BestPrices.com
Film Review Stew
Favorite? No.
Stew Poo-Poo? No.
Newsworthy:
The name "Tovarek", which
Mai Lihn uses as an FBI agent, is a Polish word and one of its meanings
is "hot chick" (the correct Polish word is "towarek", but it's
pronounced like this).
Movie Quote: "Officer
McClane. I need you to behave."
Other Actors/Actresses
from Live Free Or Die Hard
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