Die Harder

A movie by Renny Harlin

With Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, Willam Atherton, Franco Nero and others

Christina says:

John McClane (Bruce Willis) once more has to battle a gang of terrorists on Christmas.

This time they take control of Dulles Airport at Washington DC to free South American General and major drug dealer Esperanza (Franco Nero).

McClane wants to pick up his wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia), who is forced to circle above Washington with hundreds of other passengers because the terrorists have disabled the control tower.

Once more McClane has to deal with a bunch of dumb police officers led by chief Carmine Lorenzo (Dennis Franz) and the military. Of course he manages to stop the terrorists and to get (almost) all the planes safely back on the ground. One plane has to serve as a demonstration for the police and is led to crash with the manipulated flight control system.

"The same shit happens to the same man for the second time." as McClane himself puts it.

That's not quite true. The movie lacks some of the humor of its predecessor. One time I even thought it so boring I almost stopped the tape.

The only reason I hung in there was to see whether Holly would give the obnoxious reported who endangered her kids in the first movie and who now happens to be on the same plane a shot with a stun gun the nice old lady sitting next to her brought along. ("I tried it on my dog. He limped for a couple of days.")

But the movie got better. As soon as the good guys found the bad guys in a deserted church the speed picked up again. First I thought "Hollywood! They shoot and shoot and never hit anybody." But no! Some of the good guys actually are bad guys and they don't use real ammo. Nice touch.

For the great showdown everyone goes back to Dulles Airport. McClane fires a salve of fake ammo at the airport police to convince them that the elite unit isn't on their side.

But still he has to chase the bad guys all by himself, because the media don't know any scruples (moral of the day) and caused a panic on the airport with an exclusive life interview with the reporter on the plane, so the police can't get out.

Another TV crew takes McClane in their helicopter to the 747 the terrorist stole to escape with. There's a dramatic fight on the wing with no shot fired in order not to set the kerosine on fire. Still I couldn't help but ask myself why they always stand in line for fights like that. Terrorist leader Stuart (William Sadler) politely waits his turn untill his friend Grant (John Amos) was sucked into one of the engines before he attacks McClane himself. Professional courtesy?

Stuart manages to throw McClane off the wing, but McClane takes something very important with him: the tank lid.

And now to my favorite scene: McClane sets the kerosine on fire that was dripping out of the tank and the 747 explodes as it tries to lift off. Now the planes still circling can finally land (can it be that NONE OF THEM ran out of fuel???). The fiery kerosine line serves as landing lights.

All's well that ends well. McClane stumbles across the runway yelling "Holly!". I suppose Bruce Willis wanted to feel like Marlon Brando for once in his life. Some loose ends are tied up (McClane's parking ticket) and then we can begin to look forward to part 3.

Somewhere in the back of my head a small voice will forever be asking whether it's really so easy to disable an airport.

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Christina Gross