Live Free or Die Hard

Live Free or Die Hard (released as Die Hard 4.0 outside North America) is a 2007 American action thriller film directed by Len Wiseman, and serves as the fourth installment in the Die Hard film series. It is based on the 1997 article "A Farewell to Arms" written for Wired magazine by John Carlin. The film's name is adapted from New Hampshire's state motto, "Live Free or Die". In the film, NYPD Detective John McClane (Bruce Willis) attempts to stop a cyber-terrorist (Timothy Olyphant) who hacks into government and commercial computers across the United States with the goal of starting a "fire sale" cyber attack that would disable key elements of the nation's infrastructure. Justin Long, Cliff Curtis, and Maggie Q also star. Live Free or Die Hard was released in the United States on June 27, 2007. The film grossed $388 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing installment in the Die Hard series. It received generally positive reviews from critics, who called the film a return to form for the series. It is the only Die Hard film to be theatrically released with a PG-13 rating from the MPAA, although an unrated edition would later be made available on home media. A fifth film, A Good Day to Die Hard, was released in 2013. Responding to a brief computer outage at its Cyber-Security Division by tracking down top computer hackers, the FBI, led by Deputy Director Miguel Bowman, asks NYPD detective John McClane to go to New Jersey to bring in hacker Matthew Farrell. McClane arrives just in time to save him from assassins sent by Thomas Gabriel, a hacker and leader of the terrorists. On the way to D.C., Farrell tells McClane he had written an algorithm for Mai Linh to crack a specific security system for white hat purposes. Meanwhile, Gabriel orders his crew of hackers to take over transportation grids and the stock market, while nationally broadcasting a threatening message to the U.S. government. Farrell realizes this is the start of a "fire sale", a cyber attack designed to disable the nation's infrastructure.