Die Hard With A Vengeance
It seems that the Die Hard franchise has taken a cue from its lead character, John McClane; this is a series of actioners which will lay down for no man. Four parts have been filmed - with an increasing gap between each installment - and while the original is still the standard bearer, the franchise as a whole holds up surprisingly well, particularly the third film, Die Hard With a Vengeance.
Released in 1995, Die Hard With a Vengeance was in many ways the spiritual successor to the first movie. Director John McTiernan returned to the helm for a second time, having been absent from the sequel. The plot neatly dovetails with the events of the first movie, as John McClane struggles to solve riddles set by a bomber calling himself Simon, who has threatened to blow up large parts of New York if McClane won’t dance to his tune.
Bruce Willis is again excellent as John McClane, a role which will surely occupy the first line of his obituary. He plays his character with just the right amount of self assuredness, and seeing him come back from a beating is the guiltiest of pleasures.
Willis shared the screen with a recent co-star from another movie; fresh from filming Pulp Fiction, Samuel L. Jackson gave a terrific turn as Zeus Carver, a staunchly pro-black electrician from Harlem. His relationship with McClane is the heart of the movie, and never feels mishandled by either actor.
Proving that English actors will eternally be cast as butlers or villains, Jeremy Irons gives an astoundingly sophisticated performance as Simon Gruber, brother to Alan Rickman’s Hans from the original film.
Director John McTiernan has found hits hard to come by since this movie. He once again got the most from the Die Hard franchise, but 2002’s Rollerball and – as crazy as it sounds - a conviction for wiretapping, have mothballed his career for the foreseeable future.
The real star of Vengeance is the script, written by Jonathan Hensleigh. Based on an earlier, unfilmed screenplay called Simon Says, Hensleigh was just coming to prominence as the screenwriter who would later write Jumanji and Armageddon.
The DVD which I own is a two-disc special edition, with copious extras. An alternate ending and some top-class making-ofs are the highlight of the second disc, while the audio commentary on disc one deserves more than one listen, despite John McTiernan’s boring voice.
There’s only one way to sign off this review, so, as John McClane would say “Yippee ki-yay!,… (Don’t even dare finish that sentence – Ed.).”
Extras: 8/10
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