That is what I would like to call it.Doesn't make sense, but it rhymes!Anyway, going back to the movie,the good thing is it is worth all of the 60 bucks I spent on it on a Saturday morning. But was it worth of me waking up on a Saturday morning , hungry and sleepy, rushing to the multiplex,braving the rain of Pune, which left me drenched .Well to some extent yes,coz it was money's worth. Now that I have started sounding like a baniya, lets just tell you, that this is a movie solely for those who swear by the Masala Hollywood Potboilers, and for those who go to the theatres to watch a piece of magnificent moviemaking, I'd rather recommend them to stay indoors, get hold of a Spielberg DVD instead, and just get cozy with their remote. For others like me, its nostalgia revived and its time to say hello to 'Detective' John McClane(Bruce Willis, did I actually need to mention it),well for the 4th time.
The plot: based upon an article from Wired entitled "A Farewell to Arms"by John Carlin,is as simple as one could be.It's actually about confusing the entire audience about how technology can take a toll of the entire functioning system of a country and how crooked minds ( moles in FBI and hired Russian chamche) can use it to blow up their bank balances.Hmm, sounds quite original.Lost in this digital chaos,is our very analog ,good old McClane who is trying to make sense of it all,with the help of a Hacker,Matt Farell(Justin Long) and fatty accomplice Warlock(Kevin Smith) to save America from the wrath of ex-Fed Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant, last seen in Girl next Door, remember the guy who planned about the shooting of prom video Version ahem.ahem!!!).
Anyway,assisting Gabriel is hot chi(n)ckie Mai Lihn (Maggie Q) who kicks some serious McClane Ass ,kung fu style, while deploying some serious code simultaneously.I never knew geeks( Geeks here do not necessarily mean people who are "Geeks",you know, more like a Techie)could be hot as well.Well, none that I know of. At the end of it, McClane manages to save the day, and after a whooping 2hrs and 40 mins roller coaster ride,McClane survives with a few scratches and a shoulder shot and also manages to find a Techie(won't use Geek this time)future son-in-law .See, who said only Karan Johar said "It's all about loving your family".
The problem: I personally enjoyed every bit of every green dollar spent on this movie. Because it all showed on the screen.Cars banging each other, Old-school, bare-knuckle, wham-Bam sequences, Fighter Planes exploding , our Hero and his sidekick being hunted down in Dark Tunnels, Cars being thrown on them,SUVs on a Lift, Concrete Bridges breaking, Cars bringing down Choppers, and of course John McClane bringing down armies of assasins with just a handgun.
But after a while, it stats getting on you. Simply put, you start drawing parallels between McClane and our very own Mithun Da or Rajnikanth Anna (no offense). It is too much action happening around you, and McClane still manages to survive through each and every obstacle as if hopping through turtles in Super Mario.
And well, not to mention ,the many cliches attached to this genre.The geeks know it all,the villains are supergeniuses and also have been trained in combat fighting, Russians are always bad hackers, carrying MP5s ,no matter what, there is always a good hacker who can encrypt everything up and show an "up-yours" in a decrypted way,Hackers always type on the keyboard very fast and never use their mouse,the FBI is dumb and arrives late, Operating Systems of the Computers have lovely User Friendly interfaces to make even Macs burn with envy et al. But well, perhaps , I am too much complaining.
John McClane is supposed to be like this,and so is Die Hard. The amount of hair on Willis' scalp has seen a downward trend , but the action, the charisma and the power of John McClane has been sailing the skies. The chemistry between the Brute and the Brains in the movie clicked, and well , I do miss the Rupa Banyan Look of John McClane, but I am happy about one thing and that is, the Geeks/Techies have still a way with the ladies... :P
My Rating: 3 on 5