The third Die Hard cleverly retools the formula, allowing Detective John McClane’s adventures to escape the creative ghetto of ‘stuck in a building/bus/train/portaloo’ that the action genre had become saturated with since the original. In many ways, Die Hard With A Vengeance is a restart for the series, even though it has thematic connections to the first; allowing the franchise to follow a looser template in the style of the Eastwood Dirty Harry movies. In the end, however, Die Hard 3 has become the template for the future instalments with both 4 and 5 copying the city wide antics and mayhem with a buddy sidekick. While not as good as the first, this third slice of Willis anarchy is a great watch, with plenty of well staged action from returning director John McTiernan and a great supporting turn from Samuel L. Jackson.
The film lays out its stall from the off, with a confident montage of New York, with ‘Summer in the City’ on the soundtrack, which is suddenly interrupted by the mother of all explosions, sending cars and debris thundering through the air. The police, via Captain Cobb (Larry Bryggman) are contacted by Simon (Jeremy Irons) who reveals he will destroy more targets unless Lieutenant John McClane (Bruce Willis) carries out a number of tasks for him, the first being to walk around Harlem with a sandwich board proclaiming ‘I Hate Niggers’. McClane is saved from a gang by shop owner Zeus (Jackson) which leads Simon to include him in the tasks. It turns out Simon is the brother of Hans Gruber, the crook Willis dropped off the top of the Nakatomi Plaza in the original film. As the pair dash across the city in a series of dangerous tasks, McClane starts to wonder if this is actually about revenge or if it’s all a massive deception…
The biggest problem for the makers of this third Die Hard was that the formula was largely played out, with few enclosed environments left to play in; the decision was made to adapt instead a script called ‘Simon Says’ and fit McClane into it. It does solve a couple of problems, largely why Willis is always so unlucky (here, he is deliberately brought into the action) and giving the viewers something a little more original. The flipside of this is that it doesn’t always feel like a Die Hard movie. Another change is in McClane himself. Always a bit of a loose cannon and a difficult man, here these traits of self destruction are brought to fruition: McClane is a mess, estranged from Holly, an absent father, due to be sacked from his job and deep into alcoholism. It’s a brave move and gives the film a more grown up sensibility than the first two (even though this one is a 15, it feels more adult than the 18 entries). We meet John dirty, hungover and at rock bottom, and Willis’s receding hairline (apparently his scalp was coloured in to make him seem more hirsute) and dirty vest make him look as much a wino as an action hero. He has a headache throughout the entire film, leading very cleverly to the film’s climax in Canada.
The formula also changes here in giving Willis a sidekick. Jackson, as the black power Zeus is a hoot and bounces off Willis well. Although the humour isn’t as witty as Die Hard 1, it’s streets above 2 even though the laboured race dimension is a throwback to In The Heat Of The Night in the 1960s. Jackson treads the line between comic foil and believable character perfectly, becoming the heart of the movie by the end. As principal villain, Jeremy Irons’ Simon Gruber just about keeps his accent throughout. He’s not a patch on Rickman though and, with his bleached blond hair and tight blue vest, looks like he’d rather spend time with the butch soldiers than the token female nutter he gets to share an almost love scene with. In the end, Rickman was just so darn good in the original that all others seem also rans, even if they are playing a member of his family.
With a whole city as his canvas, McTiernan has a lot of fun with his action sequences. Among the best is a furious taxicab drive through Central Park, extras diving to the side as McClane’s ride ploughs along paths and over rises. There’s also an impressively staged subway crash, the last car screeching through the station. McTiernan is a fan of the old school approach, favouring physical effects whenever possible. This is just as well as the optical effects are rubbish, especially the exploding tanker. McTiernan is happiest when blowing things up, from trains to a helicopter in the Canadian climax that feels strangely out of place. Die Hard With A Vengeance proved that Detective John McClane could work outside of his usual closed in environment and ensured the future of the franchise. Look out for A Good Day To Die Hard in cinemas in February.
GK Rating: ****
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