I Watch Films: A Good Day To Die Hard

Released on Valentine's Day

A Good Day To Die Hard

John McClane Jr appears briefly in the background of one scene in the original Die Hard, which seems like about as much of the original Die Hard that's left to appear in this film. We’re (re-)introduced to him as we follow his bum into a Russian club where he shoots a man.

John McClane Sr goes to Moscow to try and sort this out. As might be expected things go wrong, there’s a jailbreak, there’s shooting, explosions, car chases, betrayal etc.

None of this is bad! It’s a perfectly good father-and-son dumb action film. But it does seem to have thrown away everything that makes Die Hard Die Hard. John McClane is inserted into the middle of an ongoing plot, but we, the audience, don’t get to figure out the twists at the same time as he does, because we’ve seen some previous scenes. It’s not closely located in time (like all the previous 4 films) or space (the first 2 for sure, the 3rd and 4th less so, though their trips being within New York State and the vicinity of Washington DC are somewhat less expansive then here). John McClane doesn’t have to be driven to learn (or re-learn) how to be a killing machine (less of this as the series progesses). When things go south he doesn’t hesitate or regret having to pick up a gun and crash a dozen cars, he just picks them up with a weary sigh and gets on with it. This shit again. And in Die Hard, the side characters get proper names, traits, characteristics, stories even. The story treats them with respect. Not so much here.

Watch This: For an exciting action film, and also a close up of Jai Courtney’s bum
Don’t Watch This: For a good Die Hard film.