A Good Day to Die Hard

For the fifth time, John McClane is in the wrong place at the wrong time. This adventure sees him travel to Russia to hunt down his son and fight to keep him alive amid car chases, exploding buildings and cheap jokes about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

A Good Day to Die Hard follows the recipe for disaster crafted by its predecessor, Die Hard 4.0: take the title Die Hard, hire Bruce Willis, and write a generic family feuds action adventure.

After an initial few moments of exposition an explosive car chase begins – a car chase that takes up what seems to be the first third of the movie. John demolishes civilian-driven cars, walls, architecture and the pickup truck he stole in the first half of the chase. The second half is spent with Mr McClane attempting, and succeeding, at destroying an Armored Personnel Carrier with a small Jeep. Apparently the producers were told by Mercedes’ PR that this was a perfectly viable scenario.

The movie utilizes the real-time and fast-paced cinematic style created by films such as The Bourne Identity and used by the re-booted 007 franchise. In AGD2DH it is used to such an extent that at times it feels disorientating and, more problematically, nauseating, making the extended action scenes an ordeal to sit through.

What follows the car chase is a further moment of conversational explanation to give the film something resembling a story, which quickly becomes a second prolonged set-piece – this one with guns replacing the cars. The next hour (this film is 98 minutes long, the shortest of all Die Hard films by quite a margin, which is a welcome disappointment) becomes an upsetting parody of great 80s action films like the original Die Hard. The dialogue turns into a series of laughable clichés, and the third and final set-piece takes the action to such heights that it becomes absolutely absurd and risible.

This unnecessary and unwanted sequel takes the good name of Die Hard one through three and throws it from the top floor of Nakatomi Plaza, whispering “Yippee Ki-yay…”.

Andrew Collins

A Good Day to Die Hard is released in the UK on 14^th February 2013.

Watch the trailer for A Good Day to Die Hard here: