Timothy Olyphant wears a Casio G-Shock

Thomas Gabriel runs the cyber-attack at the center of Live Free or Die Hard, a fire sale that knocks out the country's transport, financial, and power grids from a truck full of screens. Timothy Olyphant plays the former Defense Department analyst as cold and unhurried, a man who never doubts he is the smartest person in the room.

His watch is harder to pin down than his plan. It looks like a Casio G-Shock, the kind of tough, cheap watch bought for function and never thought about again, which would fit a man whose vanity lives entirely in his own competence. But the film never lingers on it, and no watch publication has confirmed the brand or named a model. The specific reference numbers that circulate online are guesses, not facts. What holds up is the smaller observation: a plain, utilitarian watch on a villain certain he has already outsmarted everyone.