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Bruce Willis alias John McClane is at it again but this time it is the computer world he has to deal with and in young Matt Farrell (Justin Long) he finds a cool partner as they brave the wrath of the United States Government in Die Hard 4.0.
It’s only when he goes to Matt’s flat that McClane realises that the young man is being hunted down. In trouble, they are forced to survive and like in those "on the road" films like Midnight Run that they establish a rare camaraderie and`A0dashes of`A0humour and amusing incidents, which`A0sort of compensate for the surfeit of action.`A0 The young one teaches the seasoned detective a thing or two about computers. The plot is complicated and the screenplay by Mark Bomback quite imaginative and director Len Wiseman’s action is spectacular, a special effects buff’s dream. You have cars crashing against helicopters, US Air Force jets zooming under highway exits. Human lives are snuffed out like candle flames`A0but our two guys escape lightly with only flash wounds. They may fall through lift shafts (a new favourite location, these days) or brave a shower of bullets`A0that would make even James Bond blush. What’s more one incident follows another and there’s very little breathing space but by then credibility is sacrificed for visual razzle-dazzelry. "Fire sale" in computer parlance is akin to doomsday and that’s what`A0McClane and Matt have to thwart. No prizes for guessing the end`A0correctly but by the time the curtain comes down`A0 it is unhesitatingly exhausting. For Bruce Willis it is
one more action movie but his sardonic sense of humour and some good
lines lighten the tedium and young Justin Long shows much promise. The
Oriental Maggie Q is given her space and so are Timothy Oliphant and
Cliff Curtis. It is 130 minutes of near-mayhem. Recommend only for Die
Hard fans. The 4.0 is to indicate computer usage or may be
to puzzle the viewer.
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These one-man armies
generally are lugged with a domestic problem, either a vagrant wife or
a difficult mistress but here it is a teenage daughter who is not on
talking terms with her "a role" dad who she thinks is always
spying on her. But McClane is asked to bring in the hacker Matt who
was quite oblivious that he was an accessory to Armageddon. But why?
There are villains coming out of the wood. There’s computer wizard
Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Oliphant) and his kung-fu expert aide Mai
(Maggie Q) and also FBI chief Bowman (Cliff Curtis) and it’s hard to
pick the good guys.