“Live Free or Die Hard” is really fun. It’s got action, cast, plot (though sometimes implausible), humor and, well, just more and more action. But what really makes the movie is the authenticity and likeability of Bruce Willis’s John McClane, an ordinary cop who reminds us all of our desire to accomplish great things against great odds–and the fun of making friends as we do it.
Willis has almost always been a likeable actor playing in good guy roles, so much so that his turn as “The Jackal” was hard for his audience to take. But as his classic John McClane he transcends the Willis persona and stands as the character who is the best of Bruce, bringing inspiration with a wink, and comedy with just a dry one-liner. And in each film, he brings the element of a friendship with an unlikely ally, as Justin Long’s Matt Farrell joins Reginald Veljohnson’s Sgt. Al Powell, Dennis Franz’s Capt. Carmine Lorenzo, and Samuel Jackson’s Zeus Carver as the friends in combat.
McClane isn’t just an everyman cop, but an everyman. There are cops–as well as firefighters, military and many others–still living and working in their own daily dramas into their 50’s, so Willis’s antics at the age of 52 are an encouragement. Like an old friend, John McClane is back.