Pierre Morel directs Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace and Famke Janssen in this action thriller where a retired specialist hunts the white slaving ring who have kidnapped his daughter.

Now iconic but still barmy. So many strange choices from the soapy pop music subplots to Maggie Grace’s puppy dog running style. The first half which mainly centres around the buying of a karaoke machine tries for the slow build of the original Die Hard – taking extra time to immerse us into the characters before all hell breaks loose. Yet these characters are so creaky that it feels almost surreal to linger on their dynamics and quirks. Once we are in Paris and the action begins proper, the movie grows no more realistic… but you are getting what you bought a ticket for. Wallop. Wallop. Wallop. Mid level carnage, slightly better acted macho posing. The kinetics are actually quite forgettable… it is the untethered nature of the screen acting and the seedy but sincere scripting that have made this a cultural touchstone.

7

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