One man stepping up against overwhelming odds to fight bad guys and rescue the people he loves is probably the real American dream. It might be the European dream, too, because that’s exactly what Leonard Lambert (Iain Glen, “Game of Thrones”) must do in the upcoming film “The Last Front.”

Lambert is a devoted husband and a father, raising his family in a small Belgian village, when World War I breaks out. The German Army sweeps across Western Europe with its eyes set on the French capital of Paris, but along the way, it must subdue towns and villages like the one in which the Lambert family lives. To protect his family, however, Lambert refuses to be subdued so he takes up arms against the occupying enemy.

When World War I broke out in 1914, the German Army didn’t attack France directly along its shared border. Instead, it invaded France by first invading neutral Belgium and attacking France along that border. While the German actions of World War I are vastly overshadowed by the notorious German invasions of World War II, the occupation of Belgium in 1914 was equally brutal. German troops stole resources, murdered civilians, burned villages and deported Belgian citizens for use as slave labor.

That’s the setting for Leonard Lambert’s resistance in “The Last Front.” When Lambert’s attacks on the occupying force are initially successful, the Germans are hellbent on revenge while Lambert fights to lead his family and villagers to relative safety.

If one man standing alone against a group of evildoers while his family and a bunch of innocent bystanders are at the mercy of their superior numbers and firepower sounds familiar, that’s because it’s also the plot of the 1988 film “Die Hard.” And there’s nothing wrong with a new take on the “Die Hard” formula; after all, some of America’s most beloved movies are “Die Hard” clones.

In the years that followed the release of Bruce Willis’ original masterwork, a slew of “Die Hard”-like clones hit theaters. Some were better than others, but it showed that Americans loved the idea of one man against all odds. The 1992 Steven Seagal film “Under Siege” was “Die Hard” on a ship. That same year saw Wesley Snipes in “Passenger 57,” which was “Die Hard” on a plane. Harrison Ford’s 1997 thriller “Air Force One” ratcheted up the pressure with “Die Hard” on a plane, but this time, our John McClane was the president of the United States.

“Con Air,” “Speed” and “The Rock” were all versions of the same formula. Even “Home Alone” was a “Die Hard” clone. It didn’t stop in the 1990s, either. Dwayne Johnson’s 2018 film “Skyscraper” and pretty much every Gerard Butler movie except “300” are a hat tip to the Nakatomi Plaza-set original. So while “The Last Front” might not be an entirely original formula, “Die Hard” in World War I sure sounds like a winner.

“The Last Front,” starring Iain Glen, Sasha Luss (“Anna”) and Leander Vyvey (“Vikings: Valhalla”), is in theaters on Aug. 9, 2024.

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