A Good Day to Die Hard
(2013)Like father. Like son. Like hell.
Bruce Willis returns as hard-assed cop John McClane in this fifth entry to the Die Hard series. McClane heads to Russia to help his estranged son Jack (Jai Courtney, Jack Reacher) – a highly-trained CIA operative out to stop a crooked politician with links to weapons-grade uranium. From the director of Max Payne and the screenwriter of The A-Team.... More
Proving that a talent for being in the wrong place at the wrong time runs in the family, the younger McClane is in Russian custody charged with an assassination. John travels to Moscow to help his son and discovers he's stumbled into the middle of a CIA operation. The two generations of McClane find themselves up against a heavily armed network of Eastern badasses and will have to patch up enough of their differences to do what they do best - leave a trail of bodies in their wake.Hide
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Directed by John Moore
Starring Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Julia Snigir, Yulia Snigir, Anne Vyalitsyna, Sebastian Koch, Cole Hauser, Amaury Nolasco, Megalyn Echikunwoke
Written by Skip Woods
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A Good Day to Die Hard
BY Jashezilla superstar
Honestly, this is probably one of the best films of the series.
BY Roo grader
Great action movie, I think in some ways a lot better than some of the previous Die Hard films, good to see Bruce Willis resuming his John Mclaine character, in saying that I do hope they leave the franchise alone and leave it on this positive good note.
BY GMB grader
If you want a action movie then this fits the bill. The story is weak, but then I did not come expecting a strong story. It might not be as good as the originals but it still was a great action flick.
PS Remember to pick up your brain on the way out :)
BY KeefScorsese superstar
A Good Day Die Hard is an unfortunate mess of a movie and it's not a fun mess either. While Live Free explored McClane's relationship with his daughter, A Good Day to Die Hard... More introduces McClane's son John 'Jack' McClane (Jai Courtney), a CIA ass-kicking spy who finds himself in trouble with Russian terrorists, only for McClane Snr. to come rescue the day.
The trouble with this instalment, is that there's nothing particular interesting. Willis does his best with the material but like the movie itself, there is an inordinate amount of gusto in terms of tone and character, leaving a movie void or humour and enthusiasm. In its attempts to capture the wisecracks, this movie seriously lacks an actual villain for McClane to showcase his wit which made Willis' portrayal of this iconic character appealing to begin with. Unfortunately the McClane's are up against some generic Russian terrorists who are given no chance at all to be at least interesting as Hans Gruber.
A Good Day to Die Hard makes no effort to be smart, or to be more accurate 'smarter than other action fare' which made the original Die Hard a gold standard in character driven action movies. While the film provides some decent action set pieces, they only provide a slight reprieve. When stripped down to its bones, this movie is big, loud and dumb. A disappointment and a forgettable addition to the franchise.Hide
BY Aidan1 superstar
This was so fun to watch and i love it when Bruce Willis dose Action movies he dose so well at them i love watching him kicking ass 5 Stars.
The Press Reviews
14%
of critics recommend.
Rotten Tomatoes Score. More reviews on Rotten Tomatoes
At 98 minutes, this is by far the shortest of the Die Hard films, the rest of which run more than two hours. But it ends not a moment too soon. Full Review
Everything that made the first "Die Hard" memorable -- the nuances of character, the political subtext, the cowboy wit -- has been dumbed down or scrubbed away entirely. Full Review
Generally speaking, the action elements aren't the problem here. They're certainly loud enough. It's the obligatory intra-family squabbling and preposterous plotting that threaten to derail this nonsensical sequel. Full Review
A few reasonable action sequences are mired in family soap. Full Review
I don't think it knows where it's going. I'm not even sure it cares. Full Review
Any remaining good faith in the franchise is now lost. Bruce's threatened sixth outing must surely be a bridge too far now. Full Review
The sense of exhilaration and fun that marked the best of the series has gone unaccountably AWOL. Full Review
Good Day in a nutshell? Father-son bonding with heavy artillery, a lot of big bangs, a triple-figure body count and little else. Full Review
BY Steve Newall Flicks Writer
As a fan of the first three entries in the Die Hard series I’ve always treated the most recent instalment, Len Wiseman’s execrable Live Free or Die Hard, as a disappointing aberration. While A Good Day to Die Hard improves from there in some respects, there’s sadly as much of Live Free’s DNA present as that of the better Die Hard films.... More
Where Live Free conjured up a grown-up daughter to give McClane some relevance with younger audiences, A Good Day unnecessarily invents a kick-ass super-spy son (Jai Courtney) whose mission in Moscow shares screen time with a by-the-numbers estranged father/son relationship. And, like Live Free, this entry misses what made the McClane character work so well in his first few outings.
To bring the character to life takes more than including the word “motherf*cker”, though this is good news for Bruce Willis’ best-known line of dialogue. Elsewhere the script features numerous so-so attempts to inject McClane-like wisecracks into proceedings, but a good Die Hard film requires more than zingers and gunplay.
An ongoing relationship with a real villain is absent, for starters. There’s certainly no Hans Gruber, just some generic Russians who aren't given the opportunity to make McClane’s blood boil. He’s never in the sort of jeopardy we’ve seen him in before, or on the receiving end of the same degree of brutality, instead more machine gun-toting G.I. Joe than NYPD John.
That’s a shame, since the film’s Russian setting is interesting and gets more so as it makes its way to Chernobyl for the final act. It boasts some better-than-expected action sequences too, most notably a physics-defying car chase through Moscow, but there’s just something missing. Give Courtney the lead role in a spin-off and call it a good day to wrap up.Hide
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