Live Free or Die Hard won the 2007 Oscar for Worst Title. It further solidified the argument that when a franchise considers pumping out a fourth film, a reasonable question is…
How about…no?
Yet, as the saying goes, dogs cannot help but return to their own vomit. And somehow, Live Free or Die Hard ended up being the highest grossing Die Hard movie.
Can we make sense of this? Do we want to make sense of this? Regardless, let’s put on our strappy t-shirt, embrace our baldness and leap into the void.
“Yippee-ki-yah, Mr. Falcon!”
Live Free or Die Hard
Live Free or Die Hard began its birth pangs back in 1997, two years after Die Hard with a Vengeance released. It was to be based on a script titled Tears of the Sun written by Alan B. McElroy. Bruce liked the title so much he later used it for a different film.
The plot involved a group of people who travel to the Amazon to set up a radio relay station. They are captured by a drug lord and must escape.
That did not happen. Production switched to a different script titled WW3.com by David Marconi. He based the story on John Carlin’s Wired Magazine article A Farewell to Arms and crafted a story about a cyber-terrorist attack on the United States.
The project stalled after September 11. Eventually, it was resurrected, rewritten and given to director Len Wiseman (the Underworld movies).
The title is based on New Hampshire’s state motto: Live Free or Die.
Nearly three people are aware of that fact: the janitor who polishes the state seal at the New Hampshire state capitol, the other janitor who sometimes polishes the state seal at the New Hampshire state capitol and a Jeopardy contestant who came across this fact while reading encyclopedias.
Bruce preferred the title Die Hard 4.0, which makes so much sense, it had to be rejected.
Live Free or Die Harder
So, filming began. Len Wiseman, who likely had Jiminy Cricket singing When You Wish Upon a Star on repeat in his head, hoped to return to the gritty, practical aesthetic of the original… with a PG-13 rating. Don’t you just want to pat him on the head?
This resulted in actual cars and helicopters getting thrown around, stuntmen getting injured, a practical freeway ramp being built and a miniature F-35 being dangled. All that practical work then came together to create a movie that looked…CGI.
Wiseman deserves some credit because it seems like he genuinely did try to deliver a Die Hard movie. He successfully abandons the stylized work he did on the Underworld films. He wedges in Die Hard elements as often as possible: walkie-talkie communication, machinegun fire, heists, meddling authority figures, sub-villains who exhibit brains and brawn, plus Bruce showing vulnerability in addition to delivering one-liners and displaying a stubborn toughness, etc.
At no point does Wisemen achieve the visual perfection of McTiernan and Jan de Bont, however. Then again, how could he? They operated at demi-god levels on the first film. People who weren’t there do not understand the level unlocked by McTiernan and de Bont. The original Die Hard didn’t just spin action movies into a fresh direction. It had a look and style that made it completely stand apart from its peers.
Wiseman was also hobbled by the studio mandate to be PG-13. Only at one point did he capture a true Die Hard spirit: when Bruce is crawling around on the floor of Justin Long’s apartment as an assassin tries to machinegun both of them to death. And ultimately, that is undercut by a Dues ex machina deliverance.
Live Free or Die Hard With a Vengeance
The story of Live Free or Die Hard also makes things challenging for a director. The essence of Die Hard is trapped, alone and scrounging for resources while bad guys continually threaten and an overall plan is gradually revealed.
The scope of the fourth film is too big for its own good. Bruce never feels desperate or trapped. He is always free to escape and benefits from ever-present support.
The partner dynamic from Die Hard with a Vengeance returns. Instead of Samuel L. Jackson, we get Justin Long, who plays a sarcastic computer hacker. In a vacuum, their Odd Couple relationship works. Bruce is grumpy. Long relentlessly pesters him. They are entertaining as a team, and the viewer cheers for them.
While their relationship works, the overall threat doesn’t. The overall threat affects the entire eastern seaboard, so it is hard for the viewer to fully lock into Bruce’s struggle. It is easier to relate to a hero trying to save themselves than it is to relate to them saving the world.
Live Free or Die Hard tries to alleviate this by bringing in Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Bruce’s daughter and putting her in danger. Unlike Long, Winstead is an eye-rolling character, however. She is so strong and independent that she is a caricature. If she died, the only one who might care is Susan B. Anthony.
It’s a Good Day to Live Free or Die Hard
Another essential element of a Die Hard movie is the villains. Alan Rickman and Alexander Godunov cooked in the first film. A case can be made that Rickman’s Hans Gruber is one of the greatest villains ever put on celluloid.
Live Free or Die Hard has Maggie Q. fill the Godunov role. Since she weighs 75 pounds, she does not pose a huge physical threat. If she took off all her clothes, the essence that is Maggie Q. would collapse into a pile of sparkles. Perhaps this is why it is somewhat entertaining when Bruce snaps and simply beats the snot out of her.
Cyril Raffaelli, the French Jackie Chan, is brought in to try to boost Maggie as a physical threat, but he is wasted. He jumps around like Daffy Duck and dies quickly. It probably would have worked better to let him carry all the Maggie fight scenes.
Timothy Olyphant gets the lead villain role. He plays a brilliant, deranged hacker. Olyphant is usually dependable… and fairly entertaining in a maverick sort of way in how he continually bashes various elements of Hollywood.
Olyphant doesn’t work in Live Free or Die Hard, however. He has none of the gravitas of Rickman. He is icy to the point of boring while delivering lines like, “Begin stage two.” It is hard to tell if this is a case of miscasting or if the problem is at the writing level. Probably a bit of both. Olyphant is too handsome to buy as a computer hacker, and a cyber-terrorist does not have much to do other than operate a keyboard.
Live Free or Die On This Hill Hard
Yet, here is the weird thing: despite all these problems, Live Free or Die Hard is somewhat entertaining. Bruce and Long can generate a lot of goodwill with their charisma alone, and it proves easy to watch them move from one action sequence to the next.
By the time the movie has Bruce fighting Maggie Q. in an SUV in an elevator shaft, the viewer is beaten into submission and treats the movie like a bag of expired corn chips: not ideal, but edible with a Coke to wash them down.
The secret to watching Live Free or Die Hard is to view it as a generic action movie that has no relation to the Die Hard universe whatsoever. Then when Bruce jumps out of a car doing 60 mph without spreading his brains across the pavement, one can think, “That’s not John McClane. That’s Bruce playing some other guy.”
This is no great trick for me. I do the same thing with Die Hard 2 and Die Hard with a Vengeance (there are also rumors of a fifth Die Hard film, but I have no knowledge of that). I know those two movies have big fans, but I am not one of them. Die Hard is a Mount Rushmore action film. Die Hard 2 and Die Hard with a Vengeance are not Die Hard enough for me.
Live Free or Die Hardest
But how did Live Free or Die Hard become the highest grossing Die Hard movie?
It came out 12 years after Die Hard with a Vengeance. Competition was movies like Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, Bourne, National Treasure and 300. How did an aging McClane draw an audience among those films? Bruce was no longer a big box office draw. A PG-13 rating can’t be a huge difference. One can’t imagine a lot of kids were excited to see a grumpy bald man onscreen.
International markets? Good guess. Live Free or Die Hard brought in about $250 million from foreign markets. Yet, Die Hard with a Vengeance brought in about $260 million from foreign markets 12 years earlier.
In the end, the money was probably the result of the original Die Hard still carrying that much clout even 20 years after the fact. Fans wanted to see if the magic could happen again. Upon exiting the theater, they probably shrugged and went back home to watch the original yet again.
I watched the original so many times there was a point in my life where I’m pretty sure I could have recited the dialogue of the entire movie. And that was before that joke was made on The Office…
Thinking about the original Die Hard made me forget what I’m even talking about here. Time for another rewatch. Even the end credits are exquisite in how they move from Let it Snow to a rousing encore of Ode to Joy. Man, what a movie!
