Live Free or Die Hard (2007)

Updated: Jan 25, 2023

John McClane and a young hacker join forces to take down master cyber-terrorist Thomas Gabriel in Washington D.C.

Trivia

The elevator shaft sequence was not in the film's script when Len Wiseman was hired as director. Wiseman added it because he associated elevator shafts and claustrophobic spaces with Die Hard (1988).
In the elevator shaft scene, where Mai Lihn swings on the wire, and flies into the truck and hits McClane, the stunt double accidentally cut Bruce Willis' eyebrow with her spiked heel, and according to Len Wiseman in the DVD commentary, she jabbed Willis hard enough that when medics examined the injury, the brow bone was exposed.
In addition to the 'Agent Johnson' reference, several other elements from the first Die Hard (1988) film are revisited as series trademarks. Among them are: crawling on broken glass, use of air-ducts, elevator shafts, and maintenance areas in corporate buildings, a henchman falling down stairs, an inquiry on the E.T.A. of a helicopter, and McClane's "Yippie-Ki-Yay' catchphrase, (heard in its uncensored glory in the unrated version).
Each film in the Die Hard series contains a key scene involving an elevator.

Goofs

In the elevator shaft, when the guy gets hit by Matt and falls onto the back of the SUV and drops his weapon into the SUV, the steering wheel is missing, just after John drove drove it into the shaft in the prior scene.
When McClain grabs the cable that is hanging through the back glass of the SUV in the elevator shaft you can clearly see that the end of the cable is about 12 inches below his hand, but when the SUV falls McClain has about 10 feet of cable under him.
During the elevator scene when one of Mia's henchmen shoots through the rear window of the SUV we can see thousands of glass shards on and splintered on the back of the rear seat. However, when McClane proceeds to climbing out the rear after it was safe, the backs of the rear seats were perfectly clean, without a single piece of glass.

Elevator scene from Live Free or Die Hard (2007)

Live Free or Die Hard (2007) movie poster

Director

  • Len Wiseman

Writers

Screenplay by

  • Mark Bomback

Story by

  • Mark Bomback

  • David Marconi

Based on

  • "A Farewell to Arms" by John Carlin

  • Characters by Roderick Thorp

Cast

  • Bruce Willis as Detective John McClane

  • Justin Long as Matthew "Matt" Farrell

  • Timothy Olyphant as Thomas Gabriel

  • Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Lucy Gennero-McClane

  • Maggie Q as Mai Linh

  • Kevin Smith as Frederick "Warlock" Kaludis

  • Cliff Curtis as Miguel Bowman

  • Jonathan Sadowski as Trey

  • Edoardo Costa as Emerson

  • Cyril Raffaelli as Rand

  • Yorgo Constantine as Russo

  • Ċ½eljko Ivanek as Agent Molina

  • Christina Chang as Taylor

  • Len Wiseman as the F-35B pilot

Sources: IMDB & WIKI

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