NYPD Detective John McClane lives in Brooklyn, and he’s now divorced from Holly Gennero, who lives in San Francisco. John has faced some brutal terrorists in his career, but now, he’s about to face what may be his most dangerous enemy yet. John, who occasionally does jobs forthe United StatesDepartment of Homeland Security,
receives a call to bring in a hacker named Matt Farrell, because there
has been a breach in an FBI computer system. Farrell is one of the many
hackers who are suspected in the attack, and all known hackers are to be
questioned. But after John gets to Matt’s apartment, a group of men
show up and try to kill John and Matt, who barely escape with their
lives. As it turns out, a group of terrorists led by Thomas Gabriel are
systematically shutting down the United States computer infrastructure. They crash the stock market,
crippling America’s economy. It turns out that Matt knows enough about
hacking to know exactly how Gabriel is shutting down the USA. Gabriel, a
disgraced former Department of Defense employee, plans to bring the
country to its knees, but he doesn’t count on John and Matt figuring out
what’s going on. Gabriel wants John and Matt out of the way, and for
John, the situation becomes personal when an enraged Gabriel kidnaps
John’s daughter Lucy, who is a student at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Gabriel may think he now has the upper hand on John, but he has no idea how far John is willing to go to rescue Lucy.