Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

I need to express my love……..for the DVD. Yes, yes, I do enjoy seeing movies on the big screen, but the DVD gives me so much. It gives me the freedom to watch from my own comfy living room and eat far less expensive snacks. It allows me to pause to go to the bathroom. And even more, it allows the filmmakers to put back all the stuff they took out when they went for that PG-13 rating. Oh, yes, I’m talking about Director’s Cuts. And honestly, as much fun as it would have been to see Live Free or Die Hard on a big screen, it’s way more fun to see it as an R rated movie, the way it should have been. Bad words and all.

Bruce Willis is back in this fourth installment of the Die Hard Franchise. It’s been a whole lotta years since we last saw this character – 12 years, to be precise. Willis’ John McClane is a little the worse for wear after all those years as a cop, as well as noticeably short on hair. As we sneak back into this iconic character’s life he’s busy spying on his college aged daughter. Okay, not a lot of glamour, but it sets up the tension that exists between parent and child. His skulking is interrupted by a request from his superiors that he pick up a “person of interest”. No, he’s not excited to do this seemingly mundane task and no, nothing ever remains mundane when John McClane is around.

Once we establish the premise of Live Free or Die Hard - the wholesale unraveling of society via computer hacking (known in the film as a “fire sale”) it’s all a matter of McClane protecting the good guys – in this case young Justin Long as an unwitting accomplice to the evil-doers - and searching out the bad guys – in this case Timothy Olyphant who has his undies in a serious bundle. The premise is a good one – fueled by common fears about computer safety, over-mechanization and government ineptitude. It would even be quite frightening were it not for the wink and nudge humor that makes – and has always made - the Die Hard franchise hum.

First off, it has to be recognized that Bruce Willis is the Die Hard franchise. Without his seemingly effortless bravado and the irreverent twinkle in his eye as he wreaks mayhem on a baddie, interest in the series would have ceased long ago. The test with Live Free or Die Hard is to see if he still has it all these years later. And the answer is a definite yes. Not only does director Len Wiseman let McClane be, look and act older, he lets him play off the added years without letting up on the action for a second. Willis gets to be the world-weary man to Long’s bright-eyed naive kid, filling the younger character in on what it takes to get along in the world when the world decides to go crazy. He’s the master of that world, after all.

That said, Justin Long does an admirable job keeping up with the master. He’s just a kid, but he can whip off one liners toe to toe with the old man. He also does an admirable job as computer nerd, bringing that skill set to the job of world-saving.

The action scenes in Live Free or Die Hard are bigger and better than ever. And more ridiculous, of course, which makes the entire exercise just that much more fun. If you’re going to have a plane chase down a truck, well, you might as well give that plane the ability to fly around within a freeway cloverleaf. If you’re going to have a car chase, you might as well let McClane use that car to blow up a helicopter. This isn’t a movie about realism, this is a movie about adrenaline with a smirk. And it works, all the way. McClane grins in all the right places, letting us know that Willis is in this all for the fun of it just like we are, and recognizes the absurdities just like we do. He’s there to entertain us and we love him for it. As he walks away from a scene in which he should have been killed ten times over, looks over his shouldering and utters a grinning, head shaking “Whew”, we can’t help but love him for enjoying the ride as much as we are.

The special effects in Live Free or Die Hard are, of course, spectacular. Lots of chases (foot, car, helicopter, plane – you name it, someone chases with it) and loads of things blowing up. If you’re an action junkie, this is as good a fix as you’re going to get. Even the scenes that you know had to be digitally produced look fabulous. The ever less civilized world is also done extremely well. It is not, perhaps, as profoundly dysfunctional as a real situation of this magnitude might be, but it’s pretty wild. Any more free-wheeling pandemonium would have made it impossible to tell a coherent story.

The weak link in Live Free or Die Hard is the relationship between McClane and his daughter (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Or perhaps I should just say the problem is his daughter. I don’t like her character, she’s snotty and disrespectful. By the time we see her for the second time, we’re supposed to care what happens to her. I find that difficult, almost as difficult as swallowing her abrupt change of heart without gagging on it. No, she doesn’t work for me, and fortunately she isn’t in enough of the movie to matter much. Whew.

Live Free or Die Hard is one seriously violent film. No two ways about it. It’s all cartoonish and for the most part so unrealistic that it’s just pure gleeful escapism, but plenty of people die yucky deaths. There’s also a whole lot of swearing (the f-bomb is dropped almost as often as someone is shot at) in the uncut version. There are places where you can tell it was put in (or put back in, perhaps) and McClane doesn’t get to wind up a really good “Yippee-Ki-Yay Mother*bleep*” while on camera. That particular catch phrase was sacrificed at the MPAA altar never to be heard again. I suspect that most of the violence in the uncut version is exactly as it is in the theatrical version (I have no basis from which to make that claim – I didn’t see the theatrical version - it’s just a suspicion) as the MPAA seems to have few problems with people getting blown up as long as they don’t say a naughty word or bare a breast or buttock while they do it. Those standards continually leave me perplexed. This is an R rated movie no matter how many words they take out – it’s simply too violent for most kids. The lack of realism is irrelevant – it’s for grown-ups.

But I loved the film (except for the snotty daughter). With all its gratuitous violence, naughty words, blowing things up for fun and entertainment (sorry, no bare breasts or buttocks) I loved it. Willis and Long are a good team, complimenting each other as the old man and the kid, cracking wise and grinning knowingly as they set off into one ridiculously over-the-top scenario after the other. Live Free or Die Hard is filled with action, it’s funny and it’s sort of gross all at once. If you’re looking for a lot of explosions, chaos and mayhem with very few scruples, this is where you’ll find it. Enjoy!


Recommended: Yes