A Good Day To Die Hard
Review by David Woodward
I am a long-time Bruce Willis fan going all the way back to his start in TV on Moonlighting. His willingness to send himself up (including his action hero roles, his comic talent and even his loss of hair) has endeared himself to other fans around the world too.
Willis recently returned to the John McClane police detective character he has played in four earlier Die Hard films dating back almost 25 years.
The first two in the Die Hard franchise were my personal favourites maximising the ‘wrong man in the right place’ premise to perfection. The fact that Bonnie Bedelia played his wife in these two early entries was also a winning factor for me.
The third and fourth entries were, to me, just an attempt to tag the John McClane name onto a generic action storyline.
But now A Good Day To Die Hard has taken some of the best elements of the franchise (especially Willis’ sly humour and underlying links to members of his character’s family) and updated them to a contemporary setting.
This time, McClane travels to Russia to help his estranged son, Jack (Jai Courtney), out of prison. However, he is soon caught in the crossfire of a terrorist plot and joins his son in an action-packed scheme to recover a file hidden by a Soviet official.
Some of the film was actually filmed in Moscow, Russia but most of it was shot in Budapest, Hungary. The opening sequences are relentless and were filmed over highways, through narrow streets, across bridges, and must have destroyed almost every car in the city at the time! But then again, a $92m budget can obviously go a lot further in Europe than it can in downtown Hollywood.
The introduction of McClane’s son as a key element of the plotline reminded me a little of the strategy in the last Indiana Jones film whereby the potential longevity of the franchise is strengthened by some ‘young blood’.
Having said that though, Aussie Jai Courtney does a commendable job. On the back of his recent appearance in Jack Reacher with Tom Cruise, Courtney is set to follow in the footsteps of fellow Aussie Sam Worthington in the action film genre.
On the downside however, some of the references in the film are just too coincidental and cringe worthy, particularly the inclusion of Chernobyl as a location for the climatic action scenes as well as some very exaggerated special effects in those latter sequences.
On balance though, A Good Day To Die Hard is a credible entry into the Die Hard franchise and well worth a look, if only to hear Bruce Willis saying his immortal catchphrase “"Yippee ki-yay, motherf..." one more time!
4 out of 5
A Good Day To Die Hard
Australian release: 21st March, 2013
Official Site: A Good Day To Die Hard
Cast: Bruce Willis, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Patrick Stewart, Jai Courtney, Cole Hauser, Megalyn Echikunwoke
Director: John Moore
