For an action spectacle movie held together by five or six over-the-top sequences, “Live Free or Die Hard” pays off handsomely albeit with a surplus of downtime in between.
At 52, Bruce Willis still manages to convince that his franchised NYC cop character John McClane is capable of launching cars at helicopters.
Justin Long adds considerable youthful exuberance as super-hip computer hacker Matt Farrell, who has unknowingly assisted in shutting down America’s computer-based infrastructure via a wily group of terrorists led by former Homeland Security employee Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant).
Gabriel’s a three-stage “fire sale” plan to bring the country to its knees is over the heads of America’s combined military and intelligence forces, and so it’s left up to McClane and Farrell to take out the bad guys who have also kidnapped McClane’s twentysomething daughter Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead).
A saved-by-the-cavalry ending caps off the drawn out excursion in modern day super action with an obvious dose of rah rah propaganda.
Rated PG-13. 129 mins.
