Friday Review
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It’s racy and reckless, yet has an emotional core
The villain is technology: Die Hard 4.0.
Die Hard 4
Genre: Action
Director: Len Wiseman
Cast: Bruce Willis, Justin Long, Maggie Q, Timothy Olyphant, Kevin Smith
Storyline: A bunch of hackers unleashing virtual terrorism need their
backsides kicked and John McLane obliges.
Bottomline: Yippi Ka Yay! Good.
For most Die Hard fans, it’s paisa vasool just to watch John McLane say: “Yippi Ka Yay Mo.” This breed could die of a happiness overdose watching ‘Die Hard 4.0.’ John McLane is back doing what he does best — kick a
s soon as he gets a chance to, the good old-fashioned way.
Like always, he is the man at the wrong place, at the wrong time. It’s not Christmas but it’s the fourth of July this time. Pretty much like Rocky Balboa in his last instalment, John McLane now spends a lonely life. No wife and a daughter who’s bitter with him. He’s not exactly dying to be a hero and yet always, nearly-dying when he becomes one, out of no choice. Like he says, “If someone else would do it, I would gladly let them.” Speaking for the rest of us, the hacker kid he’s protecting (Justin Long) tells him: “That’s what makes you the man.”
It’s that emotional core of ‘Die Hard 4.0’ that raises the film above the mindless-action-based sequels, even bettering the original. ‘Die Hard with a Vengeance’ (1995) started off on a promising note with the ‘Simon Says’ game, but the key revelation happens too early in the film and we’re left with nearly an hour of an explosive steeple-chase which after a point becomes really redundantThanks to Wiseman, it explodes into a recklessly racy video game, a cat-and-mouse one (come on, the bad guys are always mice compared to John McLane, our cool cat) game too like the previous films.
Technology is villain
We always knew McLane hated technology, so here they pit him against something he has no clue about and that is what makes him vulnerable. The villain is technology, not the guys specifically.
Like the bad guy Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant) says: “You are a Timex watch in a digital age.”
Even when it’s about combat, McLane is dealing with sophisticated fighters. Maggie Q plays a martial arts specialist. McLane sticks to basics. He knows someone is responsible for wreaking havoc and he knows he has to find them. In the process, he sends cars flying, takes on an F-35 jet sitting in a truck and like the John McLane Guyz Nite tribute song tells us, “the greatest car-explosions by far.”
Justin Long plays the perfect foil to McLane. Bruce Willis just seems to get better at this with age and it would be a pity if he signs off the franchise with this one. The man carries the film with his profanity and timing, getting beaten, battered, and bathes in blood before he finally gets to say: “Yippi Ka Yay”
SUDHISH KAMATH
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Friday Review
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
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