Die Hard With a Vengeance

A John McTiernan Movie

With Bruce Willis, Jeremy Irons, Samuel L. Jackson and others

Christina says:

The third movie of the Die Hard series was again directed by John McTiernan. It's as if the makers of the first movie got together to do it again, only bigger and better.

John McClane's (Bruce Willis) playground this time isn't just a building or an airport but all of New York City. Simon Gruber (Jeremy Irons) chases him and his unwilling assistant Zeus Carver (Samuel L. Jackson) to take revenge for the death of his brother Hans whom McClane threw off a rather high building in L. A.

What Simon really wants is the gold in the Federal Reserve Bank's depository and that he grabs while McClane and Zeus solve riddles and the rest of the police is looking for a giant bomb in one of New York's more than 1000 schools. To get to the gold Gruber blew up the Wall Street subway station.

Of course McClane once more puts away the villains all by himself. Or almost. The trio from hell Willis - Irons - Jackson makes sure that even in between stunts the movie is never boring. The bullets and the puns always hit home.

The rest of the terrorists are just as dull as ever and once more German. And they love kids. The school bomb isn't filled with explosives but with syrup and the villains rather take another bomb with them instead of just leaving it on the sidewalk, because a kid could.....

The police doesn't look as stupid as in the first two movies. They don't really catch the bad guys, but they don't stand in the way either.

Women sneak in by way of supporting parts. There aren't just the regular secretaries and brave wives, but a female detective and a perverted terrorist who hardly says a word but slits and shoots just like the big guys.

The stunts are spectacular. The idyllic summer-in-the-city pictures are immediately followed by an explosion, cars being thrown in the air, smoke rises and the audience is thrown out of their seats, provided they chose a theater with decent sound. When the subway station is blown up it seems a car is propelled right through the screen. I don't know if the scene of McClane being propelled out of a tunnel on a water fountain is realistic, but it's fun to watch.

A number of cars are totaled. There's no safety for pedestrians when Bruce Willis is in town. The car chase on the streets of Manhattan and the paths of Central Park is breathtaking.

Even if there was this feeling of deja vu throughout the movie it's my favorite of the three because the story doesn't just drag along till the next thing is blown apart or shot. Now I find it even harder to believe that an action movie can only have a sorry excuse for a script.

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Christina Gross