Review: Die Hard With a Vengeance

John McClane is not having the best time of it. His marriage is busted, he’s on suspension from the NYPD (for shall we say ‘poor work ethic’?), he doesn’t get to see his kids enough, and now he’s a drunken mess who just doesn’t give a shit about anything anymore. Unfortunately, he’s gonna need to start giving a shit real soon because his boss at the NYPD (Larry Bryggman) has just learned that the city has a mad bomber named Simon (Jeremy Irons) on its hands, one who is explicitly calling out McClane. There are bombs all across the city, and he wants McClane to play a game of ‘Simon Says’. He needs to solve a series of challenging puzzles within an allotted time or else a bomb will go off. Dragged into this mess is an angry African-American shop owner named Zeus (Samuel L. Jackson), who has a deep distrust of all white people, and is none too happy about having to help out this honky solve puzzles to stop the threat of another honky. But that’s what he gets for saving McClane from being assaulted by street hoodlums (After Simon forces McClane to wear a racially incendiary sign on his body in the middle of Harlem). Eventually the school Zeus’ kids attend becomes a potential target. Graham Greene and Colleen Camp play McClane’s fellow cops, whilst songstress Sam Phillips has an ironically silent role as Simon’s woman/henchwoman.

 

I was slightly underwhelmed by this 1995 John McTiernan (“Predator”, “Die Hard”, “The Hunt for Red October”) third entry into the “Die Hard” series when I first saw it in cinemas at around age 15. I still don’t think it stands anywhere near close to the awesomeness of the original, but looking back on it from a 2015 perspective it holds up quite well. Several disappointing subsequent sequels and my general apathy towards action films in the decades since have me feeling rather nostalgic for this more classical 80s-90s model of action film. It provides good, but not great fun.

 

We open well with the old standard ‘Summer in the City’. Yes, it’s an overused song, but who the hell doesn’t like it? When we meet John McClane first in this one, he’s an absolute wreck, but he’s still very much John McClane and not latter day Bruce ‘no longer giving a shit and in a stoically bad mood’ Willis. The wisecracks and cynicism are still there (and we get to see McClane on his home turf for the first time), and he’s a fun character to be around, whilst Willis is giving a genuine performance, something that became quite scarce into the new millennium, along with hairs on his head. Samuel L. Jackson, no stranger to turning up in popcorn movies (and I’m certainly not gonna tell him to stop- are you?), is perfect casting in this. Yes, he’s playing an ‘angry black man’, but Jackson makes you forget that it’s an unfortunate stereotype. He’s not just an angry black man, he’s a helluva angry black man, and Jackson (on his hot streak at the time) easily walks off with the whole film. He and McClane (hardly a calm and sedate person himself) make for an enjoyable ‘oil and water’ team here.

 

I also liked the performances by Colleen Camp, Graham Greene, and soap opera vet Larry Bryggman as McClane’s co-workers and boss, respectively. Character actress Camp (usually seen in comedies) is genuinely funny and steals every scene through sheer personality, the underrated Greene is sturdy as ever, and his co-workers’/boss’ attitude towards McClane’s downward spiral of late is amusing stuff.

 

A lot of points going to this film are because I just felt it was really nice to revisit an action film from a much simpler, less shaky-cam oriented time. However, a mad bomber whose face we don’t see for quite a long time just isn’t terribly compelling as a “Die Hard” villain. Say what you will about the previous year’s “Blown Away” (no, not the sexy one with the Coreys and Nicole Eggert’s flat chest), at least you got to see a lot of Tommy Lee Jones throughout, albeit giving an underwhelming performance and perhaps ruining my point somewhat (no, I will not change it!). Whilst there’s no denying that Jeremy Irons has a great voice (albeit afflicted with a faux German accent this time), his villain is certainly no Hans Gruber (one of cinema’s greatest-ever villains). In fact, the only thing he has over Alan Rickman is that he can affect a more credible American accent. Seeing the film again, though, I will admit that Irons is a much more formidable villain than those in subsequent “Die Hard” films. He’s OK, and the twist to his character (unrevealed by me, I don’t care how old the film is) certainly helps a lot in making him more compelling.

 

One of the best assets of the film is the thumping music score by the late Michael Kamen (“Highlander”, “Lethal Weapon”, “The Three Musketeers”), incorporating ‘When Johnny Comes Marching Home’ in a menacingly Germanic/Russian accent. You’d swear you can hear the jackboots clomping in lock-step.

 

Does this film hold up well in comparison to the first? No, and as scripted by Jonathan Hensleigh (the awful “Jumanji”, the watchable “Next”), it’s very, very silly stuff. But boy does this one tower over a lot of the crap in the genre coming out these days (as well as a few of its dopey contemporaries like “Speed”, “The Rock”, and “Terminal Velocity”). It moves at a good clip and never stops. Along with a terrific music score, and top performances by Willis and (especially) Jackson, it helps make this one pretty enjoyable genre stuff. Perhaps one of the last of a sadly dead/dying breed.

 

Rating: B-