Skip to content
Die Hart: The Movie sees Kevin Hart playing a fictionalised version of himself, and while I don’t *get* his comedy, I really enjoyed his 2021 drama, True Story, with Wesley Snipes. So, again, there are some comedians who don’t make me laugh, but work really well in drama.
We first see him promoting his forthcoming show on breakfast TV, whilst admitting his latest movie with Dwayne Johnson is “garbage”, because he wants to be an action star, then starts swearing on live TV, and somehow, it pays off, when French director Claude Van De Velde (Jean Reno) tells him, “I want to find you”.
Things don’t go perfectly to plan, though, even getting scared of a squirrel which lands right by him, causing him to chastise himself, “Don’t be a bitch, Kevin. Be Academy Award-winner Matt Damon(!)”
But that’s the easy stuff, since he’s going to be trained buy hardened action star by Ron Wilcox (John Travolta, who came back to the fore with 1994’s Pulp Fiction, but then rather disappeared off the radar with 2000’s Battlefield Earth.
In Die Hart: The Movie, Wilcox recounts that he made action films in the days BEFORE green screen was a thing, and is rather a dick to Hart, before he really doubles down on that aspect. Hart, in turn, gets the hots for Jordan King (Nathalie Emmanuel), who comes to stay at the same… training school, which is, quite frankly, a shithole.
In this film, there is some humour, and it’s very dry, plus a cameo from Josh Hartnett, a former student of Ron’s.
Overall, this is pretty entertaining, and doesn’t outstay its welcome, but there was a scene that does feel a bit out of place, these days. This involves one character pretending to shoot another with a gun – as if it contains real bullets – yet the movie industry should generally use blanks. The cavalier attitude, along with the introduction of a real bullet (at least in the script), feels out of place following the accidental death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of Alec Baldwin’s film, Rust.
As an aside, it was after hearing about this that I learned there was an entire series of it, in 2020. So, I wasn’t sure at first if this is a shortened version of that, or has had the script crunched down, and they’ve gone back and re-acted it…
But, scratch that, since I checked IMDB, and each of the 10 episodes were less than 10 minutes each, so we’re getting the whole thing in one go, hence, Die Hart: The Movie.
Additionally, given its small cast and clearly being low-budget, but since it was released in episode form in July 2020, I presume it was shot during COVID lockdowns.
Thanks to our friends at Prime Video for the screener prior to release.
Die Hart: The Movie is on Amazon Prime Video from Friday February 24th, but the film isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 84 minutes
Release date: February 24th 2023
Studio: Amazon Prime Video
Aspect Ratio: 2.00:1
Rating: 5/10
Director: Eric Appel
Screenplay: Tripper Clancy, Derek Kolstad
Cast:
Himself: Kevin Hart
Ron Wilcox: John Travolta
Jordan King: Nathalie Emmanuel
Claude Van De Velde: Jean Reno
Alan: Tyler Antonius
Editor: Haley Dumas
Himself: Josh Hartnett
Mikey: Jason Jones
Waylon: Stephan Jones
Ortiz: Joshua Lamboy
Party Guest: Danielle Madison
Juan: Eric Mainade
Camera Operator: Ronny Mathew
Danny Morrison: Brandon Quinn
Diego: Kenneth Trujillo
Leah: Milana Vayntrub
Studio Head: Gary Weeks
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.