A Good Day to Die Hard

Published on March 21st, 2013

 die hard

A Good Day to Die Hard
Starring: Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney, Sebastian Koch
Directed by: John Moore
Reviewed by Brendan Dousi

[rating: 1.5/5]

You could be forgiven for thinking this could possibly be decent, the trailer actually didn’t look too awful. It had some nice action that was set to a classical score and the giant words ‘Yippe Ki Yay Mother Russia’ emblazoned the screen. Pretty cool, huh? Well, at least it couldn’t be as bad as Die Hard 4.0, right? …right?

The story is average at best and is basically a non-issue that the whole film’s purpose is to get the two leads into more gun fights. Some Russian guy (Sebastian Koch) is in prison and has a file that can get a badder Russian guy into lots of trouble. The worst Russian guys tries to kidnap the good Russian guy from the middle of a court hearing by blowing it to smitherines and trying to kidnap him so he can take them to the file. You know, instead of just killing him because he’s the only one who knows where the key to access the file is. In this trial is Jack McClane (Jai Courtney, the aussie from Jack Reacher and Spartacus) who is a CIA Agent and for some reason gets himself caught to get closer to the guy with the file and…maybe break him out and rescue him? It’s actually the bad guys that blow the place up allowing them to escape, and that’s never explained. An immense amount of things in this movie are never explained. Never fear though, Jack’s dad, good ol’ John McClane (Bruce Willis, duh) has come under the pretence that he was visiting his son on trial only to be swept up into his CIA shenanigans. Oh, Johnny boy, can you ever catch a break?

From the start of the first, most ridiculous car chase you’ve ever seen to the end battle that takes place in Chernobyl (that’s right, sans radioactive protective suits and everything), you kind of start to get the sense that John McClane is going a little senile. Not to mention that on the plane over to Russia he’s reading a police file of his son that’s clearly in Russian, then two minutes later is in a cab unable to speak Russian.  For some reason, the screenwriter also decided it would be an awesome decision to have him mutter things to himself while he’s alone in his car, ploughing into the side of a tank with his stolen Jeep and to constantly exclaim that, ‘I’m on vacation!’ even though he’s definitely not there for a vacation. Like, the first part of the movie is setting up him going there for his son but this ‘vacation’ line is repeated over and over again. Bruce Willis is fine in the role with what he’s given, but even he looks confused some of the time. This isn’t the John McClane we’ve come to know. Courtney’s Jack McClane isn’t much better, constantly blaming his father for screwing up a CIA plan that never seemed to be that solid of a plan to begin with. It’s a bit disappointing, Jai Courtney is a great actor (read: very handsome) and you just wish you could see him in something good.

This movie as a whole plods around very unevenly and it seems to only have two modes; the first is overtly ludicrous action sequences. The second is tediously long scenes where the characters spurt out exposition. Instead of the audience learning what they need to through action and plot, the movie stops, sits the two main characters down and they have an excruciatingly naff father to son conversation where they try and make some kind of sense from an extremely stupid storyline. It just proves to be a disappointment. The concept was actually sound and somewhat promising, unfortunately it was let down by an awful choice of director and screenwriter. Honestly, how John Moore (Max Payne) and Skip Woods (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) keep getting work is completely beyond my comprehension abilities.

Ultimately, if you like mindless action then you’ll enjoy the 3/4 of this film that is purely mindless fighting. You’ll get bored during the other parts but I suggest zoning out or doing what I did, try and count the ever increasing forehead wrinkles on Bruce Willis’ furrowed brow. Or, you know, just re-watch one of the first three Die Hard films to preserve those precious memories.