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Die Hard with a Vengeance

 
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Die Hard With a Vengeance

  • Director: John McTiernan
  • AMG Rating: starstarstar
  • Genre: Action
  • Movie Type: Buddy Film, Odd Couple Film
  • Themes: Terrorism, Race Against Time, All Washed Up
  • Main Cast: Bruce Willis, Jeremy Irons, Samuel L. Jackson, Graham Greene, Colleen Camp
  • Release Year: 1995
  • Country: US
  • Run Time: 128 minutes
  • MPAA Rating: R

Plot

Bruce Willis returns as misfit cop John McClane in the third film in the Die Hard series. McClane has fallen on hard times; after moving to New York City and breaking up with his wife, he's developed a drinking problem and has been suspended from the NYPD. However, his past comes back to haunt him in the form of Simon (Jeremy Irons), a terrorist bomber who has been using McClane as his contact as he plants a series of bombs in public places and gives McClane inane "clues" to their whereabouts in the form of riddles and bizarre games. McClane soon discovers he's been involved in Simon's scheme as part of a personal grudge; while associated with an international terrorist group, Simon is also the brother of the man McClane threw off the side of a skyscraper several years back (in the original Die Hard). Now McClane, with the help of a Harlem shopkeeper named Zeus (Samuel L. Jackson), has to find out where Simon has planted the bombs, guess where he'll strike next, and try to find his base of operations before more bombs go off and thousands of people die. The supporting cast features Graham Greene and Colleen Camp; singer Sam Phillips made her acting debut as a member of Simon's terrorist group (Phillips never speaks, so as to not to reveal her Texas accent). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Review

Die Hard With a Vengeance brings John McClain back to the big action and equally large laughs that made the original so successful. With action virtuoso John McTiernan returning to the series, this third entry is heavily buttered popcorn entertainment that manages to not get pulled in by the same plot devices that were regurgitated in Renny Harlin's fun but flawed second film. There's still the heavy terrorist angle, but what the deft script does so well is turn the tables on good old Bruce Willis, while teaming him with a hilarious Samuel L. Jackson for a cat-and-mouse game through the streets of New York City. And though Jeremy Irons is no Alan Rickman, he takes great evil glee from his goofy-accented movie villain and is miles above the sorry antagonists from the previous film. Supporting characters are equally as fresh, with both the cops and the mugging German henchmen getting juicy screen time throughout the piece. With numerous gusto action scenes that only McTiernan could deliver, Vengeance lives up to the high pedestal of the series and makes for one heck of a fun thrill ride. The ending is probably the film's biggest fumble, reshot at the last second to make up for an original ending that found Irons escaping to Europe where McClain hunts him down with a bazooka (true!). It's strange how history shines upon Die Hard With a Vengeance, especially after 9/11. This is one movie that simply could not be made now. It does, however, feature some incredibly unnerving visuals that are downright haunting considering the events that occurred just six years later. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

Cast

Larry Bryggman - Chief Cobb; Ray Aranha - Janitor; Gerry Becker - Larry Griffith; Richard Council - Otto; Darryl Edwards - Livery Driver; Birdie M. Hale - Harlem Woman; Mischa Hausserman - Mischa; Patricia Mauceri - Miss Thomas; John McTiernan, Sr. - Fisherman; Stephen Pearlman - Dr. Schiller; Anthony Peck - Ricky Walsh; James Saito - Korean Proprietor; Robert Sedgwick - Rolf; Phyllis Stickney - Wanda Shepard; Anthony Thomas - Gang Member; Sharon Washington - Officer Jane; Nicholas Wyman - Targo; Joe Zaloom - Jerry Parks; Michael Cristofer - Jarvis; Charles Dumas - Cross; J.R. Horne - Sergeant John Turley; Richard Russell Ramos - FBI Chief; Michael Tadross - Greek Deli Proprietor; John Robert Tillotson - Second Broker; Victor Rojas - Kid; Patrick Borriello - Kid; Sam Phillips - Katya; Tony Travis - Marshal

Credit

John R. Jensen - Art Director, Woods Mackintosh - Art Director, Pat McCorkle - Casting, Carmine Zozzora - Co-producer, Joseph G. Aulisi - Costume Designer, John McTiernan - Director, John Wright - Editor, Buzz Feitshans - Executive Producer, Andrew G. Vajna - Executive Producer, Robert Lawrence - Executive Producer, Michael Kamen - Composer (Music Score), Michael Kamen - Songwriter, Jackson de Govia - Production Designer, George Manasse - Production Designer, Michael Tadross - Production Designer, John Stark - Production Designer, Peter Menzies, Jr. - Cinematographer, John McTiernan - Producer, Michael Tadross - Producer, Les Bloom - Set Designer, Terry J. Leonard - Stunts, Terry Jackson - Stunts, Hugh A. O'Brien - Stunts, Jonathan Hensleigh - Screenwriter, John E. Sullivan - Visual Effects Supervisor

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Die Hard with a Vengeance

Theatrical release poster
Directed by John McTiernan
Produced by John McTiernan
Michael Tadross
Associate Producer:
Robert H. Lemer
Co-Producer:
Carmine Zozzora
David Willis
Executive Producer:
Andrew G. Vajna
Buzz Feitshans
Robert Lawrence
Written by Brandon Lee Jonathan Hensleigh
Characters:
[Brandon Lee]] Roderick Thorp
Starring Bruce Willis
Jeremy Irons
Samuel L. Jackson
Larry Bryggman
Graham Greene
Colleen Camp
Music by Michael Kamen
Cinematography Peter Menzies Jr.
Editing by John Wright
Distributed by 20th Century Fox (USA)
Cinergi/Touchstone Pictures (non-USA)
Release date(s) May 19, 1995
Running time 131 min.
Country United States
Language English
German
Romanian
Budget $90,000,000
Gross revenue $100,012,499 (domestic)
$361,212,499 (worldwide)
Preceded by Die Hard 2
Followed by Live Free or Die Hard

Die Hard with a Vengeance is a 1995 action film and the second sequel in the Die Hard series. It was produced and directed by John McTiernan, who directed the first film and stars Bruce Willis as NYPD detective John McClane. Vengeance also stars Samuel L. Jackson as Willis' reluctant partner Zeus Carver and Jeremy Irons as the main villain Simon Gruber. The film was written by Jonathan Hensleigh and was followed by Live Free or Die Hard in 2007.

Contents

Plot

After a bomb explodes in the early morning at the Bonwit Teller department store in New York City, a man calling himself "Simon" (Jeremy Irons) telephones the police claiming responsibility, and demands that they play a game of "Simon Says" to prevent any more explosions. Simon orders suspended NYPD Lt. John McClane walk through Harlem wearing a sandwich board displaying racist slurs. Before McClane can be beaten by a group of outraged residents, Harlem shopkeeper and black supremacist Zeus Carver (Samuel L. Jackson) steps in to rescue McClane. Although he despises whites, Carver's main concern is that a murdered white cop in Harlem could result in "open season" on blacks by trigger-happy white cops. Together they return to the precinct where Simon calls and takes credit for stealing several thousand pounds of an Astrolite-like bi-component explosive, and warns McClane and Carver to continue to play Simon Says to prevent any more bombs made of the material to go off.

At the 72nd Street Subway Station, McClane and Carver are instructed by Simon to reach the Wall Street subway station, 90 blocks away, in 30 minutes, to prevent a bomb on a subway train destined for the station from going off. McClane manages to get aboard the moving subway car and locate the bomb, but it still explodes, sending the train cars tearing through the station, though McClane's actions prevent anyone from being killed. McClane and Carver regroup with the police and FBI and learn that "Simon" is really former East German special forces officer Simon Peter Gruber, and may be holding a grudge over the death of his brother Hans Gruber, who was killed by McClane at the end of the first film. Simon calls into the group and explains that he has planted a bomb in one of New York's public schools, and that any radio communication may set it off. This forces McClane and Carver to continue to follow Simon's instructions while the police, using every available man and resource without their standard means of communication, launch a search of every school.

With almost no officers remaining at Wall Street, Simon, his employer Mathias Targo, his mistress Katya, and numerous henchmen easily break into the Federal Reserve Bank of New York through the ruined subway station to steal all $140 billion USD of the gold bullion in its vaults, hauling it away in dump trucks. McClane comes to realize that Simon's games are a distraction and discovers the theft. Simon throws the city into chaos by publicly revealing the school bomb threat to a radio show, overloading the 911 switchboard, while McClane and Carver track Simon's trucks down to a tanker. The two are captured by Simon when they try to sneak aboard the tanker, and are tied to the real bomb, which Simon plans to detonate sending the bullion to the bottom of the ocean and ruining the world's economy. However, Simon has further deceived Targo, as the containers aboard the tanker only contain scrap metal, the real bullion having been sent elsewhere, and Katya kills Targo as they escape. McClane and Carver, also aware of Simon's deception, manage to escape in time. They regroup with the police and are treated for injures, believing that there is no hope for finding Simon.

When prodded by Carver to call his estranged wife, Holly, McClane discovers on an aspirin bottle Simon gave to him a clue to Simon's location, a border town in Quebec. Just as Simon is ready to disperse his henchmen with the bullion, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, led by McClane, arrive and capture his men. Simon and Katya try to escape on a helicopter gunship, and when he spots McClane, Simon orders the pilot towards McClane so that he can fire upon him. McClane uses his last bullets to fire on a power line, knocking it down onto the helicopter, causing it to explode. Carver regroups with McClane, happy to put an end to the threat, and jokingly reminds him that he never finished his call to Holly, directing him to a nearby pay phone.

Cast

Actor Role
Bruce Willis Lt. John McClane
Jeremy Irons Simon Gruber (aka Peter Krieg)
Samuel L. Jackson Zeus Carver
Larry Bryggman Inspector Walter Cobb
Graham Greene Detective Joe Lambert
Colleen Camp Detective Connie Kowalski
Sharon Washington Officer Jane
Anthony Peck Detective Ricky Walsh
Michael Alexander Jackson Dexter
Aldis Hodge Raymond
Nicholas Wyman Mathias Targo
Sam Phillips Katya
Aasif Mandvi Arab cabbie
Elvis Duran Radio DJ (himself)
Tony Halme Roman
John McTiernan, Sr. Fisherman
Mischa Hausserman Mischa
Argenis Sanchez Pedro

Script and setting

The film is based on a script written by Jonathan Hensleigh originally titled Simon Says, which was originally conceived as a Brandon Lee action film, then later considered for use as the fourth installment of the Lethal Weapon series. The first 45 minutes, until immediately after the Wall Street bombing, of Die Hard with a Vengeance is almost identical to Simon Says; the robbery was added to bring the story in line with other Die Hard films. The original plan was to have the villains burgle the Metropolitan Museum of Art, an idea not used here, but which appears in John McTiernan's film The Thomas Crown Affair and also the video game Die Hard: Vendetta.

Alternate endings

An alternative ending to the one shown in the final movie was filmed with Irons and Willis, set some time after the events in New York. It can be found on the special edition DVD. In this version it is presumed that the robbery succeeds, and that McClane was used as the scapegoat for everything that went wrong. He is fired from the NYPD after more than 20 years on the force and the FBI has even taken away his pension. Nevertheless he still manages to track Simon using the batch number on the bottle of aspirins and they meet in a cafe in Hungary.

In this version, Simon has double-crossed most of his accomplices, gotten the loot to a safe hiding place (Nova Scotia), and has the gold turned into statuettes of a famous landmark (in this case the Empire State Building) in order to smuggle it out of the country; but he is still tracked down to his foreign hideaway. This is very similar to Alec Guinness's situation in the British heist movie The Lavender Hill Mob made some 45 years earlier in which the stolen gold is turned into Eiffel Tower paperweights.

McClane is keen to take his problems out on Simon whom he invites to play a game called "McClane Says". This involves a form of Russian Roulette with a small Chinese rocket launcher with the sights removed, meaning it cannot be determined which end is which. McClane then asks Simon some riddles similar to the ones he played in New York. When Simon gets a riddle wrong, McClane forces him at gunpoint to fire the launcher, which fires the rocket through Simon, killing him. Of course, McClane had been wearing a flak jacket (which was the answer to the final riddle "what could he have brought to the meeting to save his life?"), so even if Simon had pointed the launcher the right way, it's likely that the relatively low-velocity rocket wouldn't have caused McClane enough injury to prevent him from shooting Simon.

In the DVD audio commentary, screenwriter Jonathan Hensleigh claims that this version was dropped because the studio thought it showed a more cruel and menacing side to McClane, a man who killed for revenge rather than in self-defense. Hensleigh's intention was to show that the events in New York and the subsequent repercussions had tilted him psychologically. This alternative ending, set some time after the main events of the movie, would have marked a serious break from the Die Hard formula, in which the plot unfolds over a period of roughly 12 hours.

According to the DVD audio commentary, a second alternate ending had McClane and Carver floating back to shore on a makeshift raft after the explosion at sea. Carver says it's a shame the bad guys are going to get away; McClane tells him not to be so sure. The scene then shifts to the plane where the terrorists find the briefcase bomb they left in the park and which Carver gave back to them (in this version it was not used to blow up the dam). The movie would end on a darkly comic note as Simon asks if anyone has a 4 gallon jug. This draft of the script was rejected early on, and unlike the rocket-launcher sequence, was never actually filmed.

Reception

Die Hard With a Vengeance had a budget of an estimated $90,000,000. It had a wide release opening in 2,525 theaters, making $22,162,245 its opening weekend in the U.S. Die Hard With a Vengeance made $100,012,499 in the USA, and another $261,200,000 worldwide for a gross revenue of $361,212,499.[1] Critical reception was similar to that of the previous film. Most critics were in favor that the film was an effective actioner, though not up to the standards of the first film. Some critics, however, felt that the film relied too heavily on unrealistic coincidences. Fans and critics are divided over whether or not this film is better than the second. Some who were disappointed by Die Hard 2 felt it was an improvement while others felt it was a step down in quality.

References

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