A Good Day to Die Hard

In the beginning

It’s not very often I agree with film critics but in the case of A Good Day to Die Hard I found myself doing exactly that. Back at new year me and my mate went to see Jack Reacher (a film I didn’t bother to review because I had no strong feelings either way about it) and saw the trailer for Die Hard 5 (easier to call it that) and we, being fans of the franchise and Bruce Willis, decided we were definitely up for seeing it when it came out. Sadly it wasn’t very good. 

Not bad for a sequel

There was all the usual action and gun play you’ve come to expect in Die Hard films but the dialogue was poor and the storyline of John McClean (Bruce Willis) going after his estranged son Jack (Jai Courtney) in Moscow could have been so much more than it was. The most redeeming feature of the film was its length; at 98 minutes at least the disappointment didn’t last for long. 

Good to have a partner

The reason the Die Hard films have worked so well in the past was the mix of action, a man being in the wrong place at the wrong time, witty dialogue and OTT villains. Die Hard 5 had action aplenty; the car chase alone must have come close to surpassing The Blues Brothers for the most wrecked cars and the mad shoot outs were loud and crazy. But that was it. Never really understood why the action had to be in Moscow, other than to give a backdrop to Jack’s backstory of being a CIA agent because there was no use of culture clash (only age and agency of the state clash) or a Moscow cop to help out, just a load of not very convincing Russian villains and an awful lot of subtitles.

4th time out still got it

To me Bruce Willis looked bored a lot of the time (perhaps that’s why the film was short; he had somewhere better to be). There was no chemistry between him and his on screen son Jai Courtney, who I had only recognised from Spartacus: Blood and Sand (just about as he was clothed in Die Hard 5) and had completely forgotten was in Jack Reacher.

So very, very bored

All in all a poor show and I heard a rumour there’s going to be a Die Hard 6. Well I say unless you get a better plot and script it’s time for John McClean to retire.