Pow, Bang, Crash -- this action film delivers.

Sure there are holes, perhaps as many as those made by the bullets narrowly-missing Bruce Willis. Still, Willis works it. Besides making for a charismatic, albeit aging, action hero -- he’s quite a good actor. Though the utterances are nary longer than a sentence and often only guttural expressions -- they concisely communicate volumes. His humor, plight, and all-in-a-day’s-work attitude win us over. We can’t help but squarely root for him and Justin Long, whose believability also helps us swallow a film that’s not always so believable.

And then there’s the action -- from acrobatics to aeronautics meeting automobility and a whole lot of shots fired and punches swung -- the film will keep your eyes wide open and your butt on the edge of the seat. Still the efforts of Bruce, Justin, and the screenwriter’s well-worked banter between the two, make all that action add up to a cohesive production that commandingly entertains.

“Anything that could go wrong for McClane did go wrong. We were always thinking of new ways to complicate McClane’s life by putting him in seemingly impossible situations. Of course, then we had to figure out how to get him out of it.” says screenwriter Mark Bomback.

“McClane’s older and so am I,” says Willis, “and that was part of the fun of returning to the character. But I also realized there is a benefit to getting older. You pay attention, and you acquire some wisdom.”

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