John McTiernan’s first project in 14 years is an awesome video game ad

John McTiernan is back…sort of!  The director of hits like DIE HARD, PREDATOR and THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER hasn’t given us any kind of project in well over a decade, but that hiatus is over (sort of) and the acclaimed director has graced us with his most recent project: a commercial for the video game Ghost Recon: Wildlands.

Watch it below!

Okay, I know it’s not a movie like you were hoping for, but the reality is this live-action trailer (called Red Dot) is actually very well-made, and a testament to McTiernan’s talent as a director. There’s a clear storytelling framework he’s working within, involving the cat playing with the sniper dot before the gunman takes down some thugs. In his best films the director has woven great stories within terrific action movies, so the commercial is evident the man hasn’t lost his touch.

The last project McTiernan gave us was the 2003 movie BASIC with John Travolta, and since then he's been dealing with the aftermath of a wire-tapping charge, to which he plead guilty. He has also had to file for bankruptcy since then, but about two years ago we heard he would be doing a movie called RED SQUAD and another called WARBIRDS (neither of which have panned out yet), so hopefully the man is still ready to bring the goods with a movie in the near future.

As I said, this trailer speaks a lot to McTiernan’s talent. Though ROLLERBALL and BASIC weren’t his best efforts he still has the ability to create engaging work. Here he offered something different when games like CALL OF DUTY only give us chaos-driven, star-studded live-action commercials that make Michael Bay look like Sidney Lumet.  It was only one minute and a half, but what a glorious way to spend a minute and a half it was.