Cast: Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney, Sebastian Koch, Sergei Kolesnikov, Yuliya Snigir; Direction: John Moore; Story and Screenplay: Skip Woods, based on the characters by Roderick Rhorp; Cinematography: Jonathan Sela; Editing: Dan Zimmerman; Music: Marco Beltrami; Producers: Alex Young, Wyck Godfrey; Genre: Action; Running Time: 110 minutes; Location: Russia; Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Technical
assessment: 3
Moral
assessment: 2.5
CINEMA rating:
V18
In Moscow,
Victor Chagarin (Sergei Kolesnikov), a high ranking official coerces whistle-blower and political prisoner Yuri Komarov (Sebastian Koch) into handing over a secret
file which Chagarin believes to have incriminating evidence against him. Simultaneously, Jack McClane (Jai Courtney) is
arrested and offers to be a witness against Komarov in exchange for a shorter
sentence. In New York, John McClane (Bruce Willis) learns of his estranged son’s
arrest and decides to go to Russia to bail him out. What John doesn’t know is that Jack is actually a CIA
operative who is trying to rescue Komarov
and retrieve the file, too, as part of his mission to thwart a major crime in
Chernobyl. But John’s sudden
appearance spoils the CIA’s plans and Jack is left to continue his mission on
his own. Jack, trying to win back the son he has never known, trails along and
constantly proves to be their life saver with his street smart keenness and wit
to counter the double crossing and deceptions that happen along the way.
From one explosion after the
other, the film desperately tries to fill in the crevices of storytelling with a poor excuse of a
father-son plot, which may not sustain the audience's sympathy or interest. The chase sequences, which must have received
the biggest investment in the production, are just loud and tiresome to watch.
Unless the McClanes have found an amulet to shield their bodies from
death, the action sequences are
implausible for ordinary humans to survive. The greatest satisfaction is
counting the minutes before the end credits roll because between waiting for
the next explosion and for Jack to finally call John "dad", the
scenes pass through like a madman's train of thought—absolutely meaningless and
senseless.
John McClane follows this philosophy—“Get the
bad guys.” Okay, that is good so
far. But then, he continues this
statement with "at any
cost". Now it becomes
problematic because at any cost in the movie means blowing up cars, destroying
property, endangering lives of innocent by standers who happen to be in the way
of the action. Fine, the McClanes
are supposed to be macho heroes who take fear and danger by their horn but with
all the damage and violence that came hand in hand with the action, one would
have to ask if the effort was worth it.
On the other side of the plot is a father
desperately trying to win the affection and respect of the son he had neglected
in his youth. The film’s attempt
to make a statement for the importance of the father-son bond, albeit against a
backdrop of violence, is the movie’s saving grace. It has tender father-son moments to emphasize the need for
family unity and love but the explosions and the violence are much too loud to
have that lesson instantly heard. One
has to pay attention to the close-ups—the exchanges between father and father,
father and son, father and daughter—to get the message. A good day to die hard wants to say that the human need for family
and the parental need for filial love outlast a man’s need for success in his
career even if that career were as dehumanizing as detective work. It is never too late to begin to
heal wounds and start over again.
