John McClane Falls Mainly on the Plain

Rating: 7/10 (26 July 2007)

What distinguishes Die Hard films from the other thrillers with pyrotechnics, is the relationship the John McClane character has with his buddy and his antagonist, in the film. Sometimes, as tn the first Die Hard, the buddy and the antagonist are the same guy: "Happy Trails, Hans!"
The dialog that ensues from these relationships is sometimes superb and always interesting. Bruce Willis' John McClane distinguishes himself as something more than a show host serving up the blown up cars and imploded rail lines and bus terminals.
McClane must relate.
The new and most interesting curve in Die Hard Four is Matt Farrell (Justin Long), a charming and impish young geek and computer hacker, who in manner and demeanor is the opposite of the muscled take charge McClane.
McClane is casually attempting to break up a relationship his daughter is having with a lowlife, when the FBI calls to have him do a routine pickup of Farrell, part of a larger roundup of computer hackers nationwide.
McClane has trouble finding Farrell. Meanwhile, pandemonium is breaking out in the Y2K world of Terror that surrounds us today. A clean cut goody-two-shoes government anti-terror planner, smeared and fired for trying to alert the government how easy a high tech disaster could be launched, gets angry and decides to create mayhem and chaos himself.
This clean cut Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant) is the bad guy match for McClane's affections, to Matt Farrell's shape-shifting slipperiness. That's good. McClane needs at least one guy who is simple and easy to understand.
Gabriel is already setting off cherry bombs and firecrackers everywhere before the aging McClane -over fifty now and hairless- manages to track down and corral the smooth and elusive Farrell. McClane's capture is difficult. But Farrell backpedals with Matt pretending he is all cooperation with Mac, when in fact he is stalling and planning to escape.
McClane really has almost no time to take him to the Precinct. Instead he finds himself enlisting Farrell's high tech know-how in a pinch. Farrell warns him, at one point, that if he tries to hot-wire this car the old low tech way, he is liable to set off the airbags knocking them both senseless. Farrell instead pulls a PDA from his backpack, and fakes his way into the car's computer to start it. McClane is impressed, but not admitting it.
Quickly the FBI Bureau Chief Learns that Gabriel is so many leagues more sophisticated than Government agencies, it is going to be difficult to stop him let alone catch him. McClane learns that many of the other geeks in the roundup have been assassinated, except Farrell, who narrowly escapes that fate moments into his capture by McClane. Big John deduces that the murders have something to do with Gabriel's plot to show America how easily it can be devastated and reduced to a pile of steaming rubble.
McClane eventually helps Farrell escape the clutches of the bureau so the two of them can track down and defeat the Gabriel Nemesis.
They are a dynamic duo. McClane's stress becomes unmanageable when he learns that Gabriel has taken his daughter prisoner. I was for him bringing the lowlife boyfriend along for the ride because there would be more laughs, but the producers wouldn't listen to me.
Young Farrell keeps riding to McClane's rescue, always diffident and fearful that he has no tactic that will work this time. Finally, Farrell pulls out the stops. He's out of ideas and needs to commune with HIS GURU from Philly: WARLOCK!
McClane is leery about this tangent, but agrees finally. He and Farrell journey to a rundown alcove in Philly, Warlock's lair. It looks suspiciously like the ruins of the black neighborhood Philly's mayor ordered torched a few years ago, to quell an insurrection of black folks. The Audience is dismayed to learn that Warlock is just plain old Clerks Director Kevin Smith, now on his knees after several flops, and forced to play portly character parts in other people's films. You remember Kevin. He's the silent guy who stood outside the convenience and video stores in Clerks selling drugs, while his taller, slimmer partner dripped a patter of obscenity-laced sexual innuendos to passing women. Anyway, Kevin Smith is the Guru here. The audience reluctantly accepts this. Even Warlock, who has also narrowly missed being murdered, is out of gas idea-wise. Both he and Matt Farrell have been able to use the cell phone system even though it is dead for the rest of the country, by harnessing system algorithms through their PDAs. With this avenue fading too, the two geeks' blackberries gasping for power, Warlock and Matt go looking for some low tech information: they look up an address in the phone book.
There are showdowns with Gabriel, attempts to save McClane's daughter at a power plant, more high tech derring-do, and many last minute saves of the doddering McClain by the Y generation Farrell. It all comes out in the end. The film is able to put its heel down in two major demos, the Ys and the Boomers, so the end is set to come out foursquare behind the values of movie audiences in both generations.
Watch this space for a Revenge of the Nerds sequel to DH Four, when Farrell goes ballistic and tries to date McClane's daughter!