A Good Day to Die Hard: It could be time to let it die

When it comes to delivering sarcastic one-liners, Bruce Willis is a real pro. And as John McLane he has plenty of opportunity to do just that. In fact, some of the lines from the first film of the franchise — 1988’s Die Hard — became part of the general lexicon. Impressive. It’s too bad then that McLane’s quick wit is wasted on the latest Die Hard film, A Good Day to Die Hard, an abysmal bore despite its exotic location and the non-stop action.

The movie’s flimsy premise finds McLane jet-setting off to Russia to reunite with his long-lost son Jack (Jai Courtney). In one of the movie’s better scenes, the New York cop bonds with a Sinatra-infatuated cab on the drive to a courthouse where McLane’s son is about to stand trial alongside criminal Yuri Komarov (Sebestian Koch). Yuri allegedly has secrets about Russian politician Chagarin (Sergei Kolesnikov) that’s he stored on a hidden file. Jack and Chagarin escape but just as they’re fleeing the courthouse, McLane gets it in the way. Due to his dad’s unexpected intervention, Jack (who it turns out is undercover CIA) misses his drop and, after a seemingly interminable car chase, has to retreat to a safe house. Father and son fight incessantly, but McLane quickly relies on his policeman’s instincts to get them out of jam after jam. They eventually lose Yuri but follow him to Chernobyl where they discover what he’s truly plotting.

Despite his age (the source of several jokes in the film), Willis has little trouble returning to the role that he played so well in four previous outings. But that’s about all this film has going for it. McLane often repeats jokes (“I’m on vacation!” he quips on more than one occasion after some death-defying escape). The father-son tension quickly grows tiresome and the finale that takes place in the old Chernobyl nuclear power plant simply requires too much of a suspension of disbelief.