A Good Day to Die Hard
2013 · Directed by John Moore
Original language: English
- action
- thriller
The story
Iconoclastic, take-no-prisoners cop John McClane, finds himself for the first time on foreign soil after traveling to Moscow to help his wayward son Jack - unaware that Jack is really a highly-trained CIA operative out to stop a nuclear weapons heist. With the Russian underworld in pursuit, and battling a countdown to war, the two McClanes discover that their opposing methods make them unstoppable heroes.
What it’s like
Hard, flat daylight and sodium-orange streetlight give Moscow a bruised, wintry grey, with the camera mostly handheld and jittery through shootouts and car chases that cut fast and bleed into one another. The palette runs cold blues, concrete greys and sudden fireball oranges, and the Chernobyl-zone sequences add a sickly yellow-green haze. The score is loud, percussive and synth-heavy, leaning on swelling strings whenever father and son finally click, and the sound design is all glass-breaking clatter and gunfire. The pacing is relentless, with little breathing room between set pieces, though quieter bickering scenes between the two McClanes give it a gruff, wry warmth. Its tone is brash, sardonic and loud, and its violence is frequent and graphic in an action-movie way: many gunfights, car crashes, explosions and bodies falling, with some blood and a few brutal close-quarters kills, but no sexual content and little lingering cruelty. It suits a Friday night with friends, a loud distraction, or a mindless rewatch, and it's for people who like blockbuster spectacle, buddy-banter rhythms and a grizzled hero who refuses to slow down.
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