The first Die Hard movie of what would become a franchise started in 1988. The adventures of saving the world as we know it in the hands of the everyman hero, New York City cop, John McClane continued for four more films. Each film was bigger, badder with McClane's signature “yippe ki yo”. Number 6, directed by John Moore (Max Payne, The Omen) from a script by Skip Moore (The A Team) takes the older McClane to Russia to help his estranged son Jack tangled in a terrorist plot. The first five Die Hard films are worthy of the movie marathon madness that will happen at your local metroplex theater in advent of this newest entry. It's too bad it doesn't satisfy as well as it's predecessors.
The subtitled opening shows some Russian political prisoner Yuri Komarov (Sebastian Koch) being offered a way out in exchange for a file by Chagarin (Sergei Kolesnikov) a high ranking but obviously corrupt Russian official. But the prisoner tells him smugly that he'll wait for his day in court. Meanwhile Jack McClane (Jai Courtney) has been arrested for assassinating Anton, a Chagarin associate. He tells the prosecutor that he has some incriminating information on Komarov. Back home in New York, John McClane (Bruce Willis) receives the information that his son had been arrested. Considering their past troubled relationship, McClane thinks the worst and takes the next flight to Moscow. He just happens to arrive just in time when the courthouse explodes and Jack escapes with Komarov. Jack doesn't make his extraction time when he comes face to face with his dad. McClane is not exactly surprised to find out that his son is a spy. Unfortunately he's also a burnable asset which means the CIA won't risk saving him when push comes to shove. Like his dad he is hardwired to make things right and save the day.
There's lots of cool car chases. Amazing, exciting, mayhem on the small Russia streets with a huge armored truck wrecking vehicles left right and over each other. There's a crazy violent helicopter vs hotel room with McClane and son managing to avoid getting shot. Alik (Radivoje Bukvić) is the tap dancing bad guy that is oily evil but somehow always manages to get away. And there's Yuri's beautiful daughter Irina (Yuliya Snigir) who the senior McClane senses something rather suspicious emanating from her despite his son's assurance that everything is going as planned. The whole story revolves around trying to find Komarov's secret file that supposedly will topple Chagarin. Eventually they end up in Chernobyl where the bad guys wearing gas masks (?) to defend against the lingering radiation of the poisoned site go to find the file in a vault full of uranium. More mayhem as expected.
There's no McClane catch phrases happening here. Except he's always saying “I'm on vacation” several times as if they are hoping that the wisecrack will be added to the collection. Willis still likes to shoot things and there's the farther/son bonding while firing machine guns together. Other than that there's no real sense of character for these two. Willis is almost too laid back. Jack is still mad about “John” always put work first, but there's no real information about him and how he got to that point. There's some natural bickering between the two but whatever development that could have been explored is filled with more bullets and explosions. The ageing Willis still has a few years to go for action movies so there's talks about another Die Hard coming. Whether they pass the baton to the son has yet to be proven.
(Review by reesa)
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