A Good Day to Die Hard

Has everyone forgotten why the Die Hard films are action classics? Somehow A Good Day to Die Hard has been billed as less of the cinematic event it is and more as a random February release. But let’s not kid ourselves. The series has changed since John McClane (Bruce Willis) threw Hans Gruber off the thirty-second floor of Nakatomi Towers in the first film. A Good Day has the tough guy cop travelling to Russia to help his son, Jack, (Jai Courtney) who was arrested. But when he arrives, it turns out Jack is actually an American spy working on an important operation. Dear old dad then tags along, of course.

That short plot description is the first issue with the film. The other four Die Hard’s have McClane thrust into a massively dangerous situation while he’s (kind of) minding his own business. This plot is more of a Mission Impossible espionage thriller. The action is driven by a handful of compelling sequences and memorable shots that will allow the film to be considered successful. The dynamic between Willis and Courtney is strong, but one can’t help but consider how similar it runs to how the daughter (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) viewed her father in the previous chapter. : Slight Spoiler Alert: Both children hate their father until he saves their lives. They don’t seem to have considered all the other lives he has saved. What brats. In actuality, Willis worked better with Justin Long in the fourth movie. They had funnier exchanges than the occasionally flat Courtney.

The script muddies itself with betrayals, double crosses and triple crosses that ultimately denies the audience of McClane’ signature phrase. Sure, he “Yippee ki yays,” but we don’t hate the person on the other end enough to get into it. Fans of the series can add A Good Day to Die Hard to the canon as the film that reveals the last member of the McClane family and the one where the heroes go through radioactive Chernobyl with no fear of the radiation. Their family is too bad ass for radiation suits. Yippee ki yay, radiation suits.

Each film earns either zero, a half or a full arrow in five categories. The categories are Acting, Writing/Directing, Emotion, Innovation and Overall Impression. The arrows are added up to equal the full score.