There was once a man named Professor Harold Hill. He was a salesman. His product? Instruments. He would travel from town to town selling marching band instruments to musically deprived communities. We're not talking one or two clarinets. We're talking the whole shebang. Uniforms, drums, trumpets, you name it. Why was he so successful with each and every venture? Because he wasn't just selling instruments. He was selling hope.
Harold Hill would convince these communities that their kids needed discipline and he was the man to do it. He promised that he would train all of their children and give these towns the big band that they always needed. And when the instruments and uniforms were paid for, just before they arrived, he would skip town and move on to the next community. Leaving them stuck with empty pockets and nobody to train their band.
A Good Day to Die Hard was recently released in movie theaters. This marks the fifth installment in the beloved Die Hard franchise. Many consider the first Die Hard to be the greatest action movie ever made. It is heralded for its interesting, well developed characters, clever plot and large scale, wonderfully executed action sequences. The following three sequels, though not as well received, maintained a level of quality set by the expectations established in the first film.
The critical response to the latest Die Hard film is the worst yet. Audiences feel deceived. All of the trademark qualities of the original Die Hard films have been abandoned. Some are looking at this as a simple misstep. That the studio failed to hit the right notes. I submit that what happened is much more than that. If you'll indulge me, I can make the case that we have all been conned.
The facts:
This is the shortest film in the franchise.
Die Hard - 131 mins
Die Hard 2 - 124 mins
Die Hard 3 - 131 mins
Die Hard 4 - 128 Mins
Die Hard 5 - 97 mins
The average running time of the first 4 Die Hard movies is 129 mins. A little over 2 hours. The most recent outing is about 25% shorter than the rest. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Especially if the thing that ain't broke has raked in over a billion dollars worldwide.
So why make a shorter Die Hard? A shorter film means a shorter script which means a shorter production period which boils down to less money spent. Now less money spent doesn't necessarily equate to a better or worse movie, but when you're dealing with a franchise that is action based, the more you spend, the bigger the bang.
Why spend less money on the production? If the studio grants you 90 million bucks to make the film and you want to keep as much of that 90 million as you can in your pocket, the less you spend, the more you get to take home. That's the kind of decision a producer can make. Bruce Willis is credited as one of the producers of A Good Day to Die Hard.
Ladies and gentlemen, we got trouble. Right here in Movie City.
Bruce Willis Has Money Problems
There's no question that our boy Bruce remains an A level celebrity. He's shown throughout his career that he's got the chops and he's nabbed roles in the some of the best movies made over the past few decades.
Although, his credits of late list some questionable movie choices. In recent years, his name has been popping up in a number of straight to video titles such as:
The Cold Light of Day
Lay the Favorite
Assassination of a High School President
Catch .44
Setup
Nobody has heard of or seen any of these movies. That's because they either had a minimal theatrical release or went straight to video outright.
Even recent decisions in wide theatrical releases such as Copout or the new GI Joe begs the question of why a big star like Willis would attach his name to something that was such an obvious cash grab.
Die Hard starts with D which rhymes with T and that stands for TROUBLE.
Bruce Willis is the only name in A Good Day to Die Hard
One of the best things about the Die Hard movies were the cast of characters portrayed by quality actors. Aside from Bruce, each movie had at least one big name to rest on.
Die Hard Gave us the great Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber. We were also graced with the presence of well known character actors Reginald Veljohnson and William Atherton.
Die Hard 2 was loaded with a welcome return from Atherton and Veljohnson as well as the great William Sadler as our villain. Even Dennis Franz, and Fred Thompson had their moment in the spotlight. Dig even deeper and there were minor roles played by John Leguizamo and Robert Patrick.
Die Hard with a Vengeance brought back the Gruber family with Jeremy Irons playing Hans' brother. Bruce Willis had excellent chemistry with his sidekick played by Samuel L. Jackson.
Live Free or Die Hard costarred Justin Long, Timothy Olyphant, Kevin Smith, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Even smaller names such as Maggie Q and Cliff Curtis played important parts.
Then you have A Good Day to Die Hard. Whoever the fuck Jai Courtney is plays his son.
And that's it.
Unless you want to count Mary Elizabeth Winstead's 30 - 45 seconds of screentime, there are no other names of note. I'm not hiding anything to further my point. That is it. Don't believe me? Tell me if you recognize any of these names -
Sebastian Koch
Cole Hauser
Yuliya Snigur
Radivoje Bukvic
Pasha D Lychnikoff
Those are the only other actors with speaking roles. I know Bruce Willis is expensive to hire, but so expensive that nobody else is allowed to be in the movie?
Actors of Movie City, heed the warning before it's too late. Watch for the telltale signs of corruption.
A Good Day to Die Hard was Filmed in the Middle of Nowhere
"Yippee Ki Yay, Mother Russia!" Exclaims the tagline on the movie poster. But it wasn't shot in Russia. A Good Day to Die Hard was filmed in Hungary. All of the Moscow scenes were shot in Budapest. You'd be stretching it to say a third of this movie featured exterior city locations. The rest was shot in various closed off soundstages, or in far away nothingness.
Why give the film an international setting? Firstly, in setting the story in Eastern Europe, you are creating an appeal to non-domestic territories. Die Hard already has a strong fanbase in the US. People here are going to watch it no matter where it takes place. Might as well set it outside of the US to get other countries interested.
More importantly, however, Hungary is a cheap place to shoot a movie. That's where you go when you don't have any money. Or in this case, that's where you go when you have 90 million dollars and you're trying to spend as little of it as possible. Sure they could have actually shot this in Russia, but what would the take home have been then?
Oh, we got trouble. We're in terrible terrible trouble. That machine that takes 24 pictures every second is the devil's tool!
***
Those are the facts, folks. I laid them out. The movie was a quick, cheap shoot that cut corners at every turn. Bruce Willis was desperately in need of the money. So what did he do? He sold us hope. We love the Die Hard series. Mr Willis came into town and promised us another one. We got excited. We ran to the box office and paid for a ticket. Then the projector started and we were distracted with a lot of explosions. Before we realized what happened, Mr Willis had already escaped in a helicopter filled with our cash. He accomplished what Hans Gruber failed to do. This wasn't a movie. This was a con job.
We invested in a movie and now all we have left are empty, worthless ticket stubs. Where is our hero cop to throw a wrench in Bruce Willis' scheme? Nowhere to be found. This is the real world and in the real world, most of the time, the bad guy wins.
