ORBzine - Bruce Willis Techno-Thrillers Movie Reviews
10 Minutes Gone (2019)
Rex (Bruce Willis -
Die Hard
), a big-time Underworld putter-upper,
hires Frank (Michael Chiklis -
Parker
) and his gang to stage a bank robbery.
The robbery ends in a double-cross,
and Frank wakes up after ten minutes unconscious.
He starts hunting down his surviving crew-members
in order to find out who is responsible for the double-cross.
The prime suspect is Griffin (Kyle Schmid -
Blood Ties
).
This is your basic heist-gone-wrong movie, like The Getaway - the original version which inspired Reservoir Dogs, not the 1990s remake that came after it. The only improvement this effort has is the fact that Rex's top minion, Ivory ( Lydia Hull ), is a female assassin rather than a male one. That said, her job is identified as Cleaner - clearly a reference to La Femme Nikita .
16 Blocks (2006)
Alcoholic police detective Jack Mosely (Bruce Willis -
Die Hard
) has to transport a witness sixteen blocks across New York City.
They have to get to the courthouse by ten o'clock,
so the witness can testify for the grand jury.
Unfortunately a hitman is after the witness.
The good news is that Mosley gets backup - his ex-partner Frank Nugent (David Morse - The Green Mile ) and detective Bobby Torres (David Zayas - Skyline ), who provide the necessary exposition. This is not a twist, technically it is more of an inciting incident. It turns out the witness is testifying against a corrupt cop, so all the corrupt cops in the city are out to kill him.
The cops repeatedly refer to the witness, Eddie Bunker (Mos Def - Italian Job ), as The Kid. However, the actor was in his early thirties at the time, and his previous job was as Ford Prefect in the movie version of Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy . The character's name is clearly a reference to the man from Reservoir Dogs , a real-life felon who inspired Voight's character in Heat .
The cat-and-mouse game between Mosley and his ex-partner is well done. Morse knows Mosley's moves so well he can predict everything he does. Except, of course, for the obvious fake-outs.
Willis has done a few of these anti-establishment films before, where he plays the one good cop in a corrupt department. Richard Donner is a dab hand at the action scenes too. However, they do not appear to be breaking any new ground here. They have all one it before. Even the big plan of taking the witness to safety aboard a hijacked bus is stolen from the 1970s Eastwood movie The Gauntlet.
Acts of Violence (2018)
The protagonist, Declan McGregor (Cole Hauser -
), is a US military veteran struggling with PTSD.
He blames his shrink for his inability to make progress.
His youngest brother (Shawn Ashmore -
X2 (2003)
) is about to get married,
but the bride-to-be is abducted from her bachelorette party.
James Avery (Bruce Willis - Die Hard ) is a police detective who solves missing persons cases. He and his partner ( Sophia Bush ) take down human traffickers whose MO is straight from Taken . He is the stereotypical violent cop who creates a body count and is not held accountable.
Declan has a lot of military-grade equipment sitting around - enough to kit out himself and his two brothers. They take on the traffickers, in a murderous spree that escalates. Of course, the criminals retaliate against their family.
Anti-Life (2020) AKA Breach
This is set in the 2242 AD.
Earth is becoming uninhabitable,
so space-ships have been built to evacuate the lucky few.
Admiral Adams-King (Thomas Jane -
Deep Blue Sea
) is tasked with taking them to colonise an M-class world
imaginatively named New Earth.
Clay (Bruce Willis -
Die Hard
), Blue (Johnny Messner -
Anacondas: Hunt for the Blood Orchid
), Task (Callan Mulvey -
High Ground
) and Chambers (
Rachel Nichols
) make up part of the crew,
trusted to experience FTL in jump-seats rather than cryo-pods.
A shape-shifting monster has come aboard the ship. Now it starts to bump off the crew, like a cross between Alien and The Thing . It takes them over, turning them into Fast Zombies, and sends them against the survivors. The good news is that the humans have weapons. The bad news is that they have to use the 200-year-old AR-15 rifle ... except for Clay, who has a hand-held flamethrower.
Like most low-budget films, this movie's ambition exceeds its grasp. The cast quote lines stolen from far better movies, but all that does is remind the audience how bad this film is in comparison to the real gems of the genre.
Assassin (2023)
When a Drone pilot is mysteriously incapacitated and put in a coma,
his wife confronts his commanding officer (Bruce Willis -
Die Hard
). She gets drafted into the unit as her husband's replacement.
Instead of controlling a drone aircraft,
she is given access to a technology for hijacking a target person's body.
Yes, they have weaponised a tech that can do what the killer did in
Red Mist AKA Freakdog
.
The unit was assigned to take out an arms dealer (Dominic Purcell - John Doe ). The villain has reverse-engineered the unit's technology, and is now hunting them on their own terms. To take out everyone close to him, the protagonist hops into a diverse series of bodies. However, her main victim shares the same criteria as herself - a CIS heteronormative Black female.
This seems to stand out among the Geezer teaser subgenre. While most of them are built around the nominal star, Bruce Willis himself, this is actually a High Concept film that works regardless of the cast. Which is just as well, because other than Willis and Purcell it has a cast of unknowns.
Cold Light Of Day (2012)
Will (Henry Cavill -
Man of Steel
) goes to Spain to spend a few weeks on a yacht with his parents,
Martin (Bruce Willis -
Die Hard
) and Laurie (
Caroline Goodall
). However, the family gets kidnapped.
Will has to track them down and save them single-handedly.
It turns out that Martin was a secret agent working for the CIA. His boss, Carrack ( Sigourney Weaver ), offers to help save him. However, she has her own agenda. Luckily Will gets help from Lucia ( Veronica Echegui ) ... a beautiful young woman of his own age, who is unfortunately unsuitable as a love interest.
This has a generic film noir storyline, but it is shot in exotic locations in sunny Spain. Although it was made in the twenty-first century, well into the digital information age, the story is like something out of the 1970s. The mcguffin is an old-fashioned briefcase, not a modern-day flash-drive! The result is a low-key film with an uncertain tone, and it slipped into justified obscurity.
Cosmic Sin (2021)
A space expedition is attacked by aliens.
The survivors are landed at a US military base,
where security is overseen by a lowly sergeant (Lochlyn Munro -
Freddy Vs Jason
). Predictably, it all goes badly wrong.
The General (Frank Grillo - Captain America: Winter Soldier ) sets up a team to deal with the alien menace. Xeno-biologist ( Perry Reeves ) is the first one recruited. A war criminal (Bruce Willis - Die Hard ) gets brought in by a Military Policeman (Costas Mandylor - ). They all get sent off-world ...
The ship crash-lands, and the survivors spend a lot of time running around a forest. Willis may be the biggest name in the cast, but he certainly gets the least amount of screen time.
All in all, this is a pretty bad movie.
Deadlock (2021)
A gang of trigger-happy plainclothes cops
shoot their way into a house in the suburbs
because they suspect it is being used to cook meth.
One of the people killed by the cops
is the son of a trigger-happy cop-killer
named Ron Whitlock (Bruce Willis -
Die Hard
).
Mack Karr (Patrick Muldoon - Vanquish ) is a hard-drinking engineer who works at the local power plant, a dam that generates hydro-electricity. The place is pretty high security, with ID checks at the front gate and a metal detector at the main door. Mack is a former US Army Ranger, so he has Top Secret clearance from the government.
With the help of some inside men, Ron and a gang of gun-toting thugs take over the power plant. Ironically, Ron used to be Head of Security there. Since it is the largest employer in the county, the cops' nearest and dearest work there. Luckily Mack evades the searchers, and starts wiping them out with ease.
This is basically a clone of Die Hard , with the ironic twist of putting Bruce Willis in the Hans Gruber role. Naturally, the copy falls far short of the original. That said, the script has a certain amount of humanity.
Extraction (2015)
Leonard Turner (Bruce Willis -
Die Hard
) and his partner Robertson (DB Sweeney -
) are the best Field Agents in the CIA.
Unfortunately Leonard's cover is blown,
and his wife is killed by enemies.
Decades later, Leonard gets pulled out of retirement. Unfortunately the mission goes wrong, with both Leonard and the McGuffin falling into hostile hands. Leonard's son Harry Turner (Kellan Lutz - ) has trained as an agent, and disobeys orders in order to locate his father. Unfortunately the CIA's best agent, Victoria ( Gina Carano ) is already on the case. To complicate things, she is Harry's ex-lover so it is inevitable that she becomes his love interest.
This is not a bad film, but it suffers from a low budget. The action scenes are shot close-up in low light, quickly edited together. In other words, the film's budget should have been spread out - allowing more time for good cinematography and fight choreography. Instead the budget mostly went to Bruce Willis, who provided his marketable name and a day or two of his time. The result is a cheap-looking movie that actually wastes a reasonably good script.
Fire With Fire (2012)
Jeremy Coleman (Josh Duhammel -
Transformers
) is a heroic firefighter.
One day he sees David Hagan (Vincent D'Onofrio -
Men in Black
) and his henchman Boyd (Vinny Jones -
Swordfish
) comit multiple homicide.
Luckily, Police Lieutenant Mile Cella (Bruce Willis -
Die Hard
) is on the case.
Our hero is put into Witness Protection. He falls in love with his bodyguard, Deputy Talia Durham ( Rosario Dawson ). Unfortunately, Hagan has hired freelance sniper Robert (Julian McMahon - Charmed ) to kill the witness and the love interest.
Coleman goes after Hagan and his white supremacist gang. Luckily, Hagan wants a war with a Black gang - the East Side Crips. Lamar (Curtis Jackson - Escape Plan ) and Wallace (Quinton Rampage Jackson - The A-Team ) reluctantly help Coleman.
First Kill (2017)
A father (Hayden Christensen -
Attack of the Clones
) and his young son accidentally witness a gangland killing.
They try to get away,
but the gangsters do not want to leave any witnesses.
The Sheriff (Bruce Willis - Die Hard ) should help the hero in such circumstances. Unless, of course, he is actually working with the villains.
Christensen may have the lesser name and clout, but he has the largest part in the film. He is able to carry the film, and acquits himself much better than might be expected.
Fortress (2021)
Robert (Bruce Willis -
Die Hard
) is living out his retirement
at an elite community for senior citizens.
One day his grown-up son Paul (Jesse Metcalfe -
) pays a visit.
Unfortunately, Ulysses (Ser'darius Blain -
Charmed
) and his team of killers is tracking Paul.
They have gone to extreme lengths to locate Robert.
It turns out that the retirement compound is a cover for a secret US military base. Robert and Paul hide out in the bunker run by General Dobbs ( Shannen Doherty ). However, in a second twist the main villain - Balzary (Chad Michael Murray - ) - knew the location all along. He already had a traitor on the inside, which means that all the dramatics Ulysses went through is for nothing.
The movie has a decent cast, for the main roles at least. The story has a few nice touches, but this is on a scene-by-scene basis rather than by over all plan. It is too cheap and cheerful for anyone to care about the characters or to feel any actual tension when they are under threat.
Lucky Number Slevin (2006)
The trailer made this out to be a light-hearted comedy-thriller, like an
Ocean's Eleven
style take on the gangster movies of Scorsese or Guy Ritchie.
Instead, the first act has Smith (Bruce Willis -
) deliver a backstory that turns out to be gritty and gruesome
with a massive bodycount dropped by a bunch of unsympathetic characters.
The Second Act is more like what the trailer promised. Slevin (Josh Hartnett - 6 Below ) is a nice guy from out of town who is crashing at a friend's apartment. He befriends the neighbour ( Lucy Liu ), before getting roped into hijinks by two teams of rival gangsters. This all ties into the backstory, as revealed at the end.
The Boss (Morgan Freeman - ) is on the brink of a gangland war with his rival, so he coerces Slevin into doing his dirty work for him. The Rabbi (Ben Kingsley - ) and his henchman (Corey Stoll - Ant Man ) likewise force Slevin into working against the Boss. Police detective Peter Outerbridge ( Orphan Black ) and his boss (Stanley Tucci - The Terminal ) try to work out what is really going on.
The Third Act ties it all together, in a massive wave of bloodshed which seeks to avenge (and out-do) the backstory in the First Act.
Marauders (2016)
A team of expert robbers performs a series of bank heists
that leaves needless fatalities.
The FBI team investigating it consists of
Special Agent in Charge Montgomery (Christopher Meloni -
Happy
), veteran Agent Stockwell (Dave Bautista -
Spectre
) and rookie Agent Wells (Adrian Grenier -
). They are lumbered with local police detective Mims (Johnathon Schaech -
Reprisal (2018)
), who seems shifty and untrustworthy.
The banks targeted are all owned by Hubert (Bruce Willis - Die Hard ), a billionaire with ties to corrupt politicians. It seems the robbers have revenge on their agenda, rather than straight-up greed.
This is a tense crime thriller with a whodunnit element, but the revenge angle is a bit distracting. It muddles the thieves' motivations, as compared to a more straightforward heist movie like Heat (1995) .
Mercury Rising (1998)
Art Jeffries (Bruce Willis -
Die Hard
) is an FBI agent who specialises in undercover work.
His target, Edgar Halstrom (Richard Riehle -
), leads a militia group in South Dakota.
Unfortunately FBI Supervisor Martley (John Doman -
) creates a Ruby Ridge type massacre,
causing the deaths of at least one under-18 person
which leaves Jeffries with a mistrust of authority figures.
A ten-year-old boy named Simon Lynch breaks the NSA's newest top-secret code. NSA nerd Leo Pedranski (Bodhi Elfman - Freedom (2000) ) tells his boss, NSA director Nicholas Kudrow (Alec Baldwin - ), who has his hit-man Shayes (Peter Stormare - Armageddon ) go after the boy. As a result, the boy's father (John Carroll Lynch - The Walking Dead ) is written out of the story.
Art, still traumatised by the death of the boy in the shootout, takes young Simon under his wing. However, since nobody trusts the disgraced agent's word he has to go on the run from the cops too. The only one he can trust is Tommy B. Jordan (Chi McBride - ), his FBI cow-orker and the movie's token black man. Art also recruits Stacey ( Kim Dickens ), a girl he met in a coffee shop. Yes, this is from the Twentieth Century - an era when female roles in stories were incidental.
This is a typical mediocre thriller of the era. What makes it stand out is just how of-its-time it is. The late Nineties had a lot of paranoia about the US Government, especially after the events in Waco, Texas. This undercurrent continued until 9/11. Remember, the movie Swordfish ended its run prematurely because of the destruction of the World Trade Centre. After that, the villain's motivations - the protection of US Intelligents assets worldwide - might seem a reasoable excuse to murder a handful of innocent civilians. After all, the Iranians later broke the CIA's communication system and shared the secret with the Russians and Chinese - thus causing global destabilisation in the following decades.
Paradise City (2022)
Ian Swan (Bruce Willis -
Die Hard
) is a world-class bounty hunter.
He goes to Hawaii to catch a big case.
Unfortunately he runs into a small army of gunmen.
Robbie (Stephen Dorff - Blade ) is Ian's former partner, reduced to low-value cases. He teams up with Ian's son in order to find the old man's killers.
Buck (John Travolta - Face/Off ), a corrupt millionaire, finances Thomas Kane (Branscombe Richmond - Tremors: The Series ) in a run for the US Senate.
Predictably, the big-name stars are somethng of a supporting cast. The younger generation take over the storyline. Luckily the best police detective in Hawaii is a babe who looks amazing in a bikini, and whose best informants are incredibly hot strippers.
Precious Cargo (2016)
Jack (Mark-Paul Gosselaar -
) is an expert at armed robbery.
He and his sniper partner Logan (
Jenna Kelly
) are killing crooks and stealing their money.
One day his ex-lover Karen (
Claire Forlani
) turns up, on the run from crime boss Eddie Flosa (Bruce Willis -
Die Hard
).
Willis was already in his decline when he made this film. As a result, he is used sparingly and effectively. As befits his role as crime kingpin, the character delegates most of the thuggery to his henchman Simon (Daniel Bernhardt - Escape Plan 3 ).
What sets this above the others in its subgenre is the relatively snappy, witty dialogue. Quentin Tarantino may have humanised the gangsters in his crime movies by letting them express themselves as individuals, and Kevin Smith carried on the tendency to focus on references to popular culture. However, this seems more reminiscent of Joss Whedon than either of the others.
The down side to the movie is its reliance on fake-looking CGI gun-flashes. Yes, this is one of those action movies which had the important bits added in post-production. John Wick 3 did it for safety reasons, but this movie did it to save money ... and it shows.
Reprisal (2018)
A bank manager (Frank Grillo -
Captain America: Winter Soldier
) lives in a suburban mcmansion with a supermodel wife.
The bad news is that they are living beyond their means.
The good news is that the protagonist's workplace
is robbed by a gun-toting armed robber (Jonathan Schaech -
Marauders (2016)
). Normally this would be a bad thing,
but this gives the protagonist the chance to track down the robber
... and then steal back some of the stolen cash.
Not to return to the bank or the insurance company,
of course, but to pay off his own debts.
At least this Film Noir approach allows for a deeper character
than the usual
Die Hard
clone would show.
Meanwhile, the protagonist's next-door neighbour (Bruce Willis - Die Hard ) is an Obi-Wan Kenobi type. As an aging combat veteran he is around to give lots of advice, but he may as well be a Force Ghost as he does not interact with other characters until the Third Act.
All in all, this film is better than it has any right to be. The Third Act seems to be an extended homage to Heat (1995) , with the villainous robber dressed like Tom Sizemore as this tries to replicate that film's iconic shoutout.
Striking Distance (1993)
Heroic police detective Tom Hardy (Bruce Willis -
Die Hard
) is about to testify against his partner Jimmy Detillo (Robert Pastorelli -
Eraser
), who is also his cousin.
Our hero's father Vince (John Mahoney -
) is happy enough to know that truth overcame loyalty.
His uncle Nick (Dennis Farina -
) and cousin Danny (Tom Sizemore -
), also a pair of cops, are not so so forgiving.
Detective Eddie Eiler (Brion James -
Enemy Mine
) also hates our hero's guts ...
but at least he is not related to him.
An encounter with a serial killer, and a case of suicidal impulses, result in multiple fatalities that lay heavy guilt on the protagonist. Two years later, our hero is reduced to working on the boat patrol. Some of his cow-orkers, like Sacco (Timothy Busfield - National Security ), still have a low opinion of him. However, his new partner Jo Christman ( Sarah Jessica Parker ) takes a liking to him.
Cousin Sizemore turns up, after a year or two of early retirement in California. At the same time, the serial killer starts up again. Can these two things be connected? The police are corrupt or incompetent, because they assume this is a copycat and the real killer is on death row. Willis is the only one who sees it is a blatant frame-up, and as a result the District Attorney (Andre Baugher - ) has set an Internal Affairs investigator after him.
A bit like Baywatch, this movie stretches itself thinking up reasons for criminals to operate near where our hero can see them from his boat. Luckily the new killer dumps his string of bodies into the river. Not only does this mean that Willis has to recover them, but the killer is targeting women that Willis slept with. Why do these women end up being refrigerated? Well, this is the easiest way to make the hero - and the audience - care. There is also the old Uncle Ben scene, taken from Spider-Man but done nowhere near as well.
Does this story proceed as predictably as every other cop movie of the era? Does SJ Parker become Willis' love interest, and end up as damsel in distress after a torrid sex scene with him? Well, the important thing to watch out for is the fact that her bra mysteriously appears when she disrobes, even though her bra was clearly not present under her string-strapped top before she took it off. This just highlights her uniqueness among Hollywood starlets as refusing to go topless - no matter how essential to the role it was. No wonder Kim Cattrall got tired of being exploited as the only naked one in Sex in the City.
This is basically a 1990s Hollywood attempt to do a neo-noir thriller. The nearest comparison would be something like Just Cause (1996).
Survive The Night (2020)
A redneck thug starts a shootout for no reason,
which ends up getting innocent people killed
and the thug's brother wounded.
Now they must find a doctor to treat the gunshot,
without drawing the attention of law enforcement.
The doctor they choose is a surgeon from a local clinic. They follow him home to his Cabin in the Woods , where he lives with his estranged father (Bruce Willis - Die Hard ). Unfortunately, the two robbers would have been better off in Texas Chainsaw Massacre . Although the thug is reprehensible, it is his partner - the decent one - who is made to suffer the most.
Tears of the Sun (2003)
Bruce Willis (
Die Hard
) commands a team of US Navy Seals,
including Eamonn Walker (Oz) and Nick Chinlund (
Chronicles of Riddick
). It was meant to include the New Zealand actor Kevin Smith (
Xena: Warrior Princess
), who unfortunately passed away just before filming.
The Seals are sent to Africa, where there has been a coup by rebels. The Seals' mission is to evacuate some European citizens, including a photogenic female doctor ( Monica Bellucci ). Of course, the doctor's mission is to protect her patients. As a result, the Seals end up escorting a group of patients through the jungle.
The rebel forces are in hot pursuit. Their commander (Peter Mensah - Spartacus: Blood and Sand ) knows what he is doing, although his team rely on weight of numbers instead of actual skills.
Director Antoine Fuqua delivers a mediocre effort. There is brutal violence, but it is not an anti-war movie. Nor is it an action movie. There is no romance between the two leads, and relatively little cameraderie between the Seals. There is no hero's journey, and nobody really learns anything or develops in any way. All in all, it is something of a shaggy dog story.
Trauma Center (2021)
Police Lieutenant Steve Wakes (Bruce Willis -
Die Hard
) is investigating serious crimes in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
However, what he does not know is that the crooks he is hunting
are actually a couple of corrupt cops in his own department.
They are a few steps ahead of him,
killing his snitch and setting an ambush for his partner.
Madison Taylor ( Nicky Whelan ) is working as a waitress in San Juan so her teenage sister can get medical care from Doctor Jones (Steve Guttenberg - Short Circuit ). She has the cheekbones of a professional model and the haircut of a military veteran (or a lipstick lesbian). Since she is the only witness to the villains ambushing Wakes' partner, she is now their main target.
The main setup for the story is simple. The Final Girl is isolated by the very things that are meant to protect her. Since she is on an empty floor of the hospital, there are no bystanders to help her. And since the villains are corrupt cops, they can use their police privileges to turn everyone else against her. The only one she can trust for help is Wakes, since he is the biggest name star in the movie. However, he is in the minimum number of scenes so it is up to Madison to save the day herself.
Vendetta (2022)
Bruce Willis was the murderous vigilante in
Death Wish (2018)
, but now he is the killer's target.
Here he is the godfather of organised crime in a small American city.
He delegates most of the gangsterism to his eldest son, Theo Rossi (
), who leads a classic 1980s-style mixed-race street-gang.
One night Theo takes his younger brother out to make his bones. This is a classic stereotypical street-gang initiation, where they kill a random stranger instead of an actual enemy. Unfortunately, this particular rando is the teenage daughter of Clive Standish ( Vikings ), an ex-Marine who is looking for an excuse to go kill-crazy.
As the one-man war hots up, the ex-Marine has to team up with rival gangsters. Specifically, a gun dealer (Thomas Jane - Deep Blue Sea ) who works with chop-shop owner Mike Tyson ( ).
White Elephant (2022)
Glen Follett (John Malkovich -
R.E.D. (2010)
), middle-man for crime boss Arnold Solomon (Bruce Willis -
Die Hard
), hires Gabriel Tancredi (Michael Rooker -
Guardians Of The Galaxy
) and his protege Carlo Garcia to assassinate some rival gangsters.
Unfortunately police detective Vanessa Flynn (
Olga Kurylenko
) is staking out one of the rivals,
and witnesses the assassin making his escape.
As a result, the killers come after her
so she cannot identify them.
Predictably, Willis' role is kept to a minimum. This is not a bad thing, because the actual leads are competent in their own right. Kurylenko may have the face and body of a supermodel, but she has a few action heroine roles in the Girls Kick Ass! category. Meanwhile, Rooker has played tough guys for decades and is very convincing at kicking ass himself.
Die Hard Franchise
Die Hard (1988)
John McTiernan
, veteran director of action movies like
Predator
, delivered this effort which not only spawned four sequels
but also changed the nature of the action movie genre itself.
A NYPD police officer named John Maclane (Bruce Willis - Fifth Element ) flies into Los Angeles to see his ex-wife, Holly Gennero ( Bonnie Bedlia ). He visits her office at Nakatomi Tower, where the company's Xmas party is underway. Unfortunately, Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman - Harry Potter Franchise ) and his dirty dozen gun-toting terrorists take over the building. Maclane must single-handedly defeat the villains and save the day.
This is based on a book, Nothing Lasts Forever, and was originally intended to star Frank Sinatra. As with Dirty Harry, Sinatra declined the opportunity and let someone else take a career-defining role. Schwartzenegger was also considered, making this film a direct sequel to Commando . However, luckily this did not take place.
Maclane is not a one-man army like Rambo, the archetypical 1980s action hero. Instead he a blue-collar everyman. While he has a police-issue handgun, the villains have sub-machineguns. This is another break with tradition. Most villains in action thrillers only carried civilian hand-guns, but in Die Hard the bad guys carry military-grade fully-automatic weapons. The next big switch would be in the Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies , which features villains in SWAT-style body armour for the first time.
The one-man-against-hijackers storyline is not entirely original. Alistair MacLean wrote The Golden Rendezvous in the 1960s, but the earliest example of this sub-genre is probably a 1940s film noir called Quiet Please, Murder, which featured a private detective in a library that had been taken over by gangsters.
The film is a masterpiece on many levels. Each role, no matter how small, has the perfect cast member. There are even a couple of villains from the Bond movies. FBI Agent Johnson is Robert Davi ( Licence to Kill ), and one of Rickman's team is the assassin from The Living Daylights .
Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990)
It is Xmas Eve, and John MacLane (Bruce Willis -
The Fifth Element
) is at Dulles Airport in Washington DC to pick up his wife.
Unfortunately it is not his day.
His wife's flight is delayed, and his car is towed by the local cops.
Worse, there are gun-toting bad guys running around the airport.
The villain of the piece is Colonel Stuart (William Sadler - Roswell ). He is a parody of Colonel Oliver North, here portrayed as a mercenary hired to save a General Noriega figure (Franco Nero - Django Unchained ) who is being extradited to the USA. Strangely the extradition plane will arrive at the civilian airport, rather than at a military Air Force Base, but that is the least of the film's flaws.
Stuart and his men seize control of the airport's control systems. It all seems quite ridiculous today, in the post-9/11 era. However, the story is set a decade earlier when it was almost believable that security would be more lax.
There are a few familiar faces in the supporting cast. A very young-looking Robert Patrick ( Terminator 2 ) gets a line of dialogue and a death-scene in a shoot-out. Yes, this is the film that established him as a rent-a-villain before he got to take on Schwartzenegger. Later, Colm Meaney ( Under Siege ) attempts an English accent as the pilot of a passenger jet.
Denis Franz ( Psycho 2 ) is the airport's chief of police, and has an adversarial relationship with MacLane. This is necessary to maintain the situation of MacLane being a one-man army, with minimal assistance from the authorities. MacLane is pushed even further out of the loop when a US Army Special Forces Unit, Blue Light, arrives to deal with the terrorist threat.
There is a sub-plot about journalists being bad people. Thornburg (William Atherton - Ghostbusters (1984) ) is on the same airplane as Holly Genero, even though he still has a restraining order against her for punching out two of his teeth at the end of the first film. The stewardesses are resentful of him because he made a TV documentary highlighting unsafe practises in the airline industry. Meanwhile, MacLane resents a nosy lady journalist in the airport although he is more than happy to accept her assistance when it suits him.
The dialogue actually lampshades the unbelievable coincidence of the same thing happening to the same guy twice. However, this is just not as good as the first one. We never really feel that MacLane is in any jeopardy. In the original film, John McTiernan made MacLane into an everyman character. This time round, Renny Harlin turns MacLane into an unstopable one-man army who can easily defeat a team of Special Forces soldiers.
Die Hard 3 (1995)
Simon (Jeremy Irons -
Dungeons And Dragons (1999)
) uses a series of bombs to hold New York City to ransom.
He starts to play a game of Simon Says over the phone with the police.
This involves humiliating John MacLane (Bruce Willis -
Fifth Element (1998)
), who has quit the LAPD and returned to his old job in the NYPD.
Zeke Carver (Samuel L Jackson - Avengers Assemble ) is a storekeeper in Harlem, who helps out local kid Aldis Hodge (Leverage). He gets roped into helping MacLane, rather than see his neighbourhood destroyed by the bombings. The NYPD team has even more diversity, in the form of detectives Graham Greene ( ) and Colleen Camp .
MacLane and Zeke drive around the city, accepting clues from Simon over the phone and trying to defuse the bombs before they explode. This is from the last decade that a 1970s-style urban thriller like this could work. When the heroes need to contact the police in an emergency, they need to find a rich man with a car-phone.
It turns out that Simon has a small army of henchmen, and a secret plan that involves aheist. Luckily for our heroes the villains have an unnecessarily convoluted escape route. It turns out that a lot of things have been dumbed down to make the story smoother. Also, MacLane is a mad-dog killer who shoots first and does not even try to arrest suspects.
Die Hard 4.0 AKA Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
John MacLane (Bruce Willis -
Fifth Element
) is still in the NYPD, but has nothing better to do than hang around a college campus stalking
- I mean, protecting - his daughter Lucy (
Mary Elizabeth Winstead
). Then he gets a call, to go and arrest computer hacker Justin Long (
Galaxy Quest, Jeepers Creepers
) ...
Super-hacker Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant - Hitman ) does not limit himself to a building, an airport or even a city. He has decided to shut down the Eastern Seaboard of the USA. His girlfriend ( Maggie Q ) is also an ass-kicking assassin, which is lucky for him since he can get her to kill potential threats without having to pay her the going rate.
Kevin Smith tries his hand at proper acting. Let's just say he was better as Silent Bob!
Die Hard 5: A Good Day To Die Hard (2013)
John MacLane (Bruce Willis -
Fifth Element
) gets a lift to the airport with his daughter Lucy (
Mary Elizabeth Winstead
). This could have been the start of a great movie,
with a kick-ass female leading the next generation of the the Die Hard Die-Nasty.
Will they board a plane to Germany to face Hans Gruber's relatives?
Unfortunately, Lucy stays home while daddy goes to Moscow alone. He must collect his wayward son (Jai Courtney - Spartacus: Blood and Sand ). Yes, the next generation of MacLanes is just an inferior copy of the original. This makes Courtney the new Sam Worthington. Remember how, a couple of years before this film, Worthington was the Australian who starred in remakes of classics like Clash of the Titans , franchise films like Terminator Salvation and blockbusters like Avatar ? Well, his fellow Australian Courtney has filled his niche with franchise films like Divergent, Terminator: Genesys, Suicide Squad .
R.E.D. Franchise
R.E.D. (2010)
Bruce Willis (
GI Joe: Retaliation
) has taken early retirement from the CIA.
He spends all day talking on the phone to helpdesk lady
Mary Parker
.
Willis is attacked by trigger-happy goons who do not understand the concept of tactics. He himself does not believe in taking prisoners, so he has nobody to interrogate and thus no leads to investigate. Instead he gets together his old team from the Cold War days. This includes his old partner (John Malkovich - White Elephant (2022) ) and MI6 hit-person Helen Mirren . Even their arch-enemy, Ivan the KGB Agent (Brian Cox - Manhunter ) is on their side now!
They take on the entire US Military-Industrial Complex, from their former CIA handler (Richard Dreyfus - Close Encounters of the Third Kind ) to the Vice President of the USA (Julian McMahon - Fantastic Four ). Karl Urban ( Judge Dredd ) is the CIA assassin called in to clean up the mess. The result is a lot of shootouts that owe a lot more to the story's comic-book origins than to any real-world laws of physics!
R.E.D. 2 (2013)
Bruce Willis (
GI Joe: Retaliation
) and
Mary Parker
are living happily ever after in suburban bliss.
John Malkovich (
White Elephant (2022)
) drops by to warn them, in his own inimitable way,
that a wikileaks document has linked them to a CIA Black Op from 1968.
Somehow this was only THIRTY-two years ago, so something is off with the timescale.
CIA goon Neal McDonagh ( Arrow: Season 4 ) leads a hit-squad after the good guys. He even hires a world-class Korean assassin to hunt them down. Worse, MI6 send their best hit-person ( Helen Mirren ).
Luckily, our heroes have a few allies, even if they do have dubious loyalties. These include a femme fatale ( Catherine Zeta Jones ), Ivan the KGB Agent (Brian Cox - Manhunter ) and a mad scientist (Anthony Hopkins - Hannibal ). Yes, the two actors who played Hannibal Lector in the movies have a scene together.
The McGuffin is a red mercury nuke with a one-megaton yield. Strangely it does not obey the laws of physics - for example, an airburst would normally enhance the destructive power of an explosion, but here it seems to negate it. Also, a major atomic explosion near a major metropolitan area would normally result in a lot of nuclear fallout, but this does not appear to be a problem here.
Nobody (2021)
The protagonist, Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk -
Better Call Saul
) is stuck in a boring middle-class life
with a beautiful wife (
Connie Nielsen
) and a depressing 9-to-5 job.
In fact, the wife is the successful one in the family -
following in the footsteps of her father (Michael Ironside -
Total Recall (1990)
). Things take a turn for the worse
when the family home is scene of a home-invasion burglary.
Hutch goes out looking for trouble, and ends up in the most pointless fight on a city-bus since The Specialist . Unfortunately one of the thugs that Hutch hospitalises is the younger brother of the head of the local Russian Mafia.
Our hero and his father (Christopher Lloyd - Back to the Future ) face off against an army of Russian mobsters.
Hitman Franchise
Hitman (2007)
We get an expositionary intro stolen from the pilot episode of
Dark Angel
, as the baldy barcoded children escape from their school.
. Basically, this is about super-assassins who can somehow blend in anywhere on earth,
despite being bald-headed Caucasian men with barcodes tattooed on their heads.
Seriously.
The protagonist, Number 47 (Timothy Olyphant - The Crazies Die hard 4.0 ) must have been caught, because when he grows up he is a Hitman working for a secret Agency. He kills a Russian politician, gets hunted by the Head of local police (T-Bag from Heroes ), and then gets told he must kill a witness. Naturally the plot takes a couple of twists from there, and the Hitman must go on the run.
He takes along the witness ( Olga Kurlenko ), a friendly Russian hooker who keeps our hero company and becomes his cliched love interest. Despite being a black-clad baldie with a barcode on his head and Interpol cops after him, he manages to remain remarkably inconspicuous.
He goes on the offensive, and tracks down Desmond from Lost - the Russian President's wayward brother, an illegal arms dealer who becomes the Hitman's target.
There are some great action scenes, but it is nothing we have not seen in John Woo films over the years.
Hitman: Agent 47 (2015)
Agent 47 is back, although he now looks like Rupert Friend.
His backstory has been rewritten,
and the hitmen were now created by the Soviets rather than the Americans.
His mission this time is to locate his progenitor (Ciaran Hinds -
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life
) before the Syndicate can use his knowledge
and re-start their super-soldier program.
Agent 47's first target is a young woman who is believed to be able to find the progenitor. However, a helpful fellow tries to protect the woman. The bad news is, he is Syler from Heroes .
This is a low-budget straight-to-video effort. Well, the original film was not exactly big-budget either, but this has a cast of virtual unknowns. However, the small budget is well-spent on flashy visuals such as shoot-outs. Not exactly John Woo stuff, but the film-makers knew what their target audience wanted.
Hitman: Redemption AKA Asher (2018)
This was directed by
Michael Caton Jones
, not some flashy action director,
so you can expect characterisation and drama instead of gratuitous explosions.
It might be shelved with the other movies in the Hitman series,
but the killer is not a bald-headed superman with a barcode on the back of his neck.
Instead, he relies on brains rather than CGI-enhanced acrobatics.
The title character, Ashur (Ron Perlman - Season of the Witch ), is a former Mossad assassin who now freelances for the Jewish mob in Brooklyn, New York City. The godfather (Richard Dreyfus - Jaws (1975) ) gives him a special mission. A new gang has started moving in on the mob's territory, and someone has to make an example out of them. Ashur has to complete three kills in order to complete the contract.
The hitman is past his best, and he knows it. He has a close brush with death - not at the hands of an enemy gunman, but due to a heart attack brought on by climbing too many staircases. Luckily this brings him into contact with a potential love interest - Famke Janssen . A pity that she is now the love interest of older men, instead of being the ass-kicking Xenia Onnatop she was back in Goldeneye (1995) .
As a drama, the external conflict is somewhat limited. While the gangsters are in the background of the story, the main focus is on the protagonist's human side. In other words, it is all relatively slow-moving.
Like all the best fictional hitmen, Asher prefers to work buy himself. However, he gets a good offer to team up with Peter Facinelli ( Hollow Man 2 ), and goes along to check out the mission.