Duly Noted: Live Free or Die Hard and Les Choristes

Duly Noted
"Live Free or Die Hard" and "Les Choristes"

“Live Free or Die Hard,” being the latest film in the franchise that gave us the classic action film “Die Hard” (I have not seen the other two sequels) is the type of of movie that you try your best to enjoy. It features Bruce Willis as the bad-ass super-cop, John McClane. It's supposed to offer great action sequences, some fantastic one-liners, and great villains; in short, it has the potential to serve as perfect entertainment. The problems I have with “Live Free or Die Hard” are similar to those I have after listening to Coldplay. Their songs are catchy and easy to listen to, but I find them so inane and boring that, after listening to one of their songs, I ask myself why I chose to do so in the first place. I felt the exact same way after watching “Live Free and Die Hard.”

The movie, which is directed by Len Wiseman, the man behind “Underworld” and “Underworld: Evolution,” the other two films in his limited canon, has the following premise: a computer genius and villain with the utterly uncreative bad-guy name Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant) is angry when leaders in the U.S. ignore his calls to revamp the security of the computer networks upon which the country relies. In retaliation, he decides to bring the country to its knees by controlling everything through computers, hiring a sizable team of thugs to carry out his dirty work, and teaming up with his lover, a martial-arts specialist named Mai. Oh, and McClane gets involved when the Feds send him to rescue a ditzy computer hacker named Matt Farrell from Gabriel's thugs.

It's an utterly ridiculous plot, and I don't mind that in the least. What bother me most is that an evil plan involving a villain that gains control of everything is, by its nature, dull. One could argue that the premise of “Die Hard” was similar, but the difference is that Alan Rickman's villain disillusioned himself with his perfect master plan. He was so arrogant that he couldn't recognize its flaws; then, McClane made an entrance, and the rest is history. In “Live Free or Die Hard,” Gabriel has instantaneous access top secret documents and facilities, he can see everything on CCTV, and he can even order a jet to attack targets; he has such an omnipotent presence that it ignores the far more interesting and crazed humanity behind such a plot. It isn't a plan that lies within the realm of great villainy – it's an example of Hollywood at its most schizophrenic and incoherent.

Wiseman does not help matters. His direction, particularly of his actors, feels inadequate, and he appears to feel that he can make up for the film's various inadequacies by throwing a host of action movie cliches at us – the problem is that such requisite action movie fodder doesn't work very well either. The action sequences feel cobbled together, and the fight scenes between McClane and some henchman play out like poorly conceived boss fights in a video game. It's also troubling when the inevitable deus ex machina, involving Gabriel kidnapping McClane's daughter, fails to trigger any kind of feeling from its viewers. Like the rest of the movie, it's just plain boring.

"Les Choristes" follows the familiar mode of other inspirational films in which a brilliant teacher gives his students the opportunity and the hope that society has not. The setting is post-war France, where a middle-aged teacher named Clement Mathieu (an excellent Gerard Jugnot) starts work at a dreary institution for troubled children. Mathieu, who is a composer in his free time, goes against the school's stringent and incompetent headmaster and forms a chorus, making just about everyone feel happy.

It's difficult not to like "Les Choristes." Aside from an astoundingly stupid framing narrative, it's a pretty well made movie with decent performances – we even get to enjoy some lovely singing. But it's the kind of film that doesn't take any chances, that relishes in its own predictability, and doesn't leave much of an impression once you've finished the journey.

"Live Free or Die Hard" First Viewed: 12/11/08 on DVD - IMDb
"Les Choristes" First Viewed: 12/5/08, on DVD - IMDb