It’s been a while since I’ve seen a Bruce Willis film, and he has a reputation for delivering great action movies. Live Free or Die Hard sure doesn’t disappoint in that category. The stunts are amazing and the plot keeps things moving at a pace that barely lets up.
The plot was quite interesting to me, especially having worked in network security. The villain recruits hackers from around the world to each unknowingly build isolated pieces of a massive coordinated attack on the country’s computer infrastructure, targeting transportation, financial systems, and utilities all at once. Rather than relying on some new supercomputer or alien technology, the bad guys essentially crowd sourced the attack through deception. I thought that was a clever approach. There are many instances where the networks being attacked just wouldn’t be publicly available in the real world, but I guess that’s just Hollywood.
The action is the real star of the movie though. The set pieces keep escalating in ways you don’t see coming, from a helicopter ambush in a tunnel to an absolutely wild sequence involving McClane and a fighter jet on a freeway overpass. Several of these weren’t in the trailer either, which was a pleasant surprise.
My only complaint is the number of cheesy moments between the two main characters. I’m not really sure what these scenes were trying to convey, but they didn’t come off well at all. There’s one scene while they’re driving to Baltimore that was almost unbearable. Luckily the action keeps the movie fast paced enough that you don’t have to sit with those moments for long.