“Die Hard with a Vengeance” (1995) makes it three-for-three in the John McClane action franchise. We get what we come for: McClane (Bruce Willis) gets dirtied and bloodied, a Gruber brother terrorizes him, he’s out the outs with his wife, and John McTiernan is back from the first film in the director’s chair.
And yet this isn’t a straight repeat: Lone wolf McClane’s team-up with Samuel L. Jackson’s Zeus Carver is refreshing, we’re in the heat of summer rather than a snowy Christmas, and for the first time we’re in McClane’s actual jurisdiction in New York City.
Brainy blockbuster
Writer Jonathan Hensleigh is known for explosion-laden blockbusters like “Armageddon,” but here – repurposing his own unfilmed screenplay “Simon Says” – he adds a brainy element.
“Die Hard with a Vengeance” (1995)
Director: John McTiernan
Writer: Jonathan Hensleigh
Stars: Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Irons
This could almost be a Riddler-focused “Batman” story as Simon (Jeremy Irons) dangles McClane and Zeus on puppet strings, forcing them to solve riddles in order to defuse bombs. Eventually, the FBI reveals to our heroes that Simon is the brother of “Die Hard’s” Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman); that’s a cool twist because cop action franchises don’t often have continuity among the villains.
Willis, in the prime of his action stardom, and Jackson, ramping up to the A-list himself, have rhythmic buddy-cop chemistry even though Zeus is actually an electrician; it’s a Shane Black-ish oddball pairing. “DH3” is mainly concerned with action, but the duo’s friendship genuinely develops as Hensleigh peppers in some race-relations commentary.
Zeus claims he only saved McClane from getting killed in Harlem because he doesn’t want his neighborhood filled with trigger-happy cops. He takes several of McClane’s comments as a race thing, and at one point assumes John was going to call him a “n*****” when he was actually going to call him an “a**h***”).
But in the end we wish they could team up again in future movies (although I guess that’d be a little cheesy).
An ambitious goal
The goal of Simon is ambitious even by the standards of blockbuster action movies, but as a viewer, I never fell into “This is so stupid” mode.
While the overuse of “Johnny Comes Marching Home” amid Michael Kamen’s score is a bit much, “DH3” sells its premise by showing us a lot of the preparations and movements by Simon’s mini-army of Germans, whose end game is to steal tons of gold from the Federal Reserve Bank. (Killing McClane along the way is a bonus to Simon.)
Action maestro McTiernan goes bigger in “DH3” without falling in the trap of going dumber. Sure, there are a couple of green-screened moments, but ultimately all the grime and torn clothing is earned.
A highlight is when McClane, in a dump truck, tries to outrace an oncoming wall of water in an aqueduct. He climbs atop the truck, grabs a grate and gets blasted out in a spray of water. Zeus happens to be driving by to pick him up; such is the overall quality of the film that we go with it.
McTiernan and editor John Wright craft an intense back half wherein Simon now holds the entire NYPD plus various federal agencies on strings. One of the clues – “What’s 21 out of 42?” – leads the NYPD to Chester A. Arthur Elementary School (named after the 21st president).
Even if you don’t have kids, it’s fingernail-biting time as we cut between students lined up to run out the doors in a “new fire drill” and a bomb expert (Kevin Chamberlin) trying to decide which wire to cut.
An admirable villain
Irons, who recently did great work in TV’s “Watchmen,” is masterful as a villain we can’t help but admire because he’s so darn good at his job. There’s no violent excess where Simon kills underlings or goes into fits of rage over McClane staying alive.
When Zeus – now feeling confident himself – has Simon at gunpoint, Simon calmly takes the gun away, demonstrates how the safety was off, and shoots Zeus in the leg.
Among the numerous soldiers is one woman in this film that’s otherwise not female-oriented (Bonnie Bedelia takes this entry off as John’s wife, although she serves as the absent center of his personal story).
The German woman, Katya, expertly kills a bank vault security guard with a nasty blade, but never talks. Remarkably, she’s played by Sam Phillips – yes, the same Sam Phillips who does the scores for Amy Sherman-Palladino’s shows from “Gilmore Girls” to “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
A 1995 time capsule
“DH3’s” plot is a 20th century time capsule; today I feel like there’s no way Simon and his mini-army could get away with all those gold bars to the point where they can “buy a country.”
It was more likely back then, when communications, tracking and data collection were more primitive; cellphones do pop up in the film, but the signals aren’t reliable enough. (The next entry, 2007’s “Live Free or Die Hard,” enters the brave new world of cyber-terrorism.)
With so much attention to detail, it seems possible that a determined villain could play institutions like puppets in order to execute an uber-daring plan.
“Die Hard with a Vengeance” is big and bomb-ridden – and it finds a lot of fun in the McClane-Zeus banter — but its most impressive trait might be that it colors within the lines of plausibility.