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Jacqueline Monahan's Movie Reviews

A Good Day to Die Hard | Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney, Sebastian Koch | Review

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2sm The Flick Chicks movie rating for this film is BADJacqueline Monahan

Jacqueline  Monahan

Las Vegas Round The Clock
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Jacqueline Monahan is an educator for the GEAR UP program at UNLV.
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2lg The Flick Chicks movie rating for this film is BAD

A Good Day to Die Hard | Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney, Sebastian Koch | Review

John McClane (Bruce Willis) is back yet again, this time trying to repair a strained relationship with his son, Jack, (Jai Courtney) a CIA agent embroiled in a U.S./Russian search for a mysterious file.

McCain shows up in Moscow just as Jack escapes from Russian authorities, liberating himself and a jailed Russian dissident (Sebastian Koch).  

A dangerous, multi-car crash/action filled chase ensues and McClane naturally joins the noisy, explosive, nearly non-stop cacophony, complaining all the while that he’s really just “on vacation.”  This particular vacation takes him to Chernobyl – yes, THAT Chernobyl, and without a hazmat suit.

The radioactive nuke site offers a big revelation, notable only for the fate of the helicopter involved.  Father and son work on their relationship through all of the wreckage and destruction.   Awww…

Bruce Willis brings his smirk and his aging though still active physique to the McClane persona, understandably familiar to him after five iterations. Willis, amusingly enough, once starred in the M. Night Shyamalan film, Unbreakable; as John McClane, he’s also indestructible.  The character walks away from rollover crashes and being hurled through plate glass windows, with maybe a little cut on his lip but not a broken bone in sight.

Australian Jai Courtney nails the American accent and ramps up the testosterone level of the macho film even more.  The high visibility of being in a Die Hard film should launch him into other arenas where he can reveal acting abilities without the use of ammunition.

Sebastian Koch, believable as a disillusioned, which-side-is-he-on operative, is one of the more interesting characters in the film, when he can get a word in between the gunfire and the gimmicks.

Director John Moore (Max Payne) goes for the bam-booms rather than the brains, but there’s certainly a market for that kind of mindless, vicarious destruction.  The folks that appreciate that kind of adrenaline-stoked frenzy will cheer on their hero while others doze in their seats.  

Yes, a movie can be loud AND boring.  Too much of anything, be it lingering, lovelorn glances, sweeping landscapes, or in this case, endless vehicle mayhem and explosions, can cause a glazed effect in the viewer rendering the exact opposite of what those scenes intend to do – hold the collective interest.

Perhaps a more suitable title would be A Good Day to Die Hard - For Good.

 

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