SolidChamp
Banned
Unfortunately, the third act is a bit of a mess and holds it back from being the action masterpiece it nearly was. Even by the filmmaker's own admission on the DVD commentary track, the first hour of Die Hard: With A Vengeance is the series at it's very best. They lament the choices made in the late stages of production and the hatchet job that was made to the final third of the script in an effort to try and find a fitting ending.
The first half of the film is flawless; McClane is called in from his suspension because a terrorist is setting bombs off in NYC. This is the first time we get to see McClane in his own element...and maybe the point of the Die Hard series was always to pull him out of his element...but here, we get the grand stage of New York as a backdrop to the ensuing mayhem.
New York, in this film, is fully realized. It plays a starring role with minutiae characters being woven in and out of the story that give the city a true sense of place and presence. It's alive with colorful characters who all affect or react to the events that unfold. From people on public phones, to operators at their call centers, to people overhearing news broadcasts on the radio; the film goes out of it's way to make NYC as visual and as memorable as Nakatomi Plaza was in the first film. Even a kid who rides his "getaway bike" past McClane after a petty theft has a way of affecting the story ("It's Christmas, you could steal City Hall"), much in the same way that the guy on the plane who imparts the "fists with your toes" advice to McClane, does.
One of the elements of this film that I appreciate far more than in Die Hard are the police themselves; here we get policemen, firemen, city officials, and various other municipal workers actually doing things that feel real and completely believable. They react to the situation in real ways. Even though they're being played for fools by Simon Gruber (and we'll get to him in a minute), at least we don't have the bumbling idiots from the first film who feel like they're there to deliberately sabotage everything that McClane is trying to do. Again, a role as small as McClane's superior officer feels prominent and relatable. He feels like a person who actually cares about John McClane. "Did you talk to Holly?" he asks, concerned, at the start of the film as McClane nurses a hangover. "Beer is usually taken internally, John." another officer says to him as she helps him get ready for the difficult task ahead.
Again, these are all small side characters who feel like they've known John for quite a while. It's the little details; but they're woven into John's character so well, with little bits of dialogue that are just right, we feel like we've known them as long as we've known John. They are an extension of his character, and the mythology that the series adheres to so well (in the first three, anyway).
Next up, we have the absolutely stellar chemistry between Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson. This is Willis doing some of his best stuff in the series, overall, and it feels like that's a result of Jackson's presence, who thankfully finds his way into the story not long after the film starts. As a result of this pairing, the film dares to play with topical and subversive themes, the strongest of which being the hot-button racial issues that are as relevant today as they were decades ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8n_1qgA2DM
The film was ahead of it's time, in some ways (when's the last time we seen a summer action blockbuster open the way this movie did? You know what scene I'm talking about).
One of the final elements of the film that really stands out is the villain himself, Simon Gruber. Dare I say it, he's the perfect follow-up to his brother, Hans. You couldn't have found a better master criminal than in Jeremy Irons portrayal of the methodical, intelligent, and highly sophisticated ex-soldier whose real motivation is the biggest gold heist in U.S. history. McClane is just a means to an end, and Simon is even happy to let the death of his brother slide and leave him to wallow in defeat, until McClane shows up at his front doorstep, that is. Simon is one of the truly great "polite villains" of cinema; he's a gentleman and a good sport who plays by his own twisted set of principles. You can't help but love to hate the guy, much in the same way we do Hans. The real fun is in Simon's riddles and mind games that he lays out for McClane and Zeus. These should have continued to build right up until the very end, but sadly that's where the film goes off the rails in the third act.
If there's one thing that With A Vengeance is guilty of, it's straying too far from it's initial story beats and structure and leading us into a third act which feels all over the map and stitched together from a number of ideas. In trying to give the film it's own "continuity" within the Die Hard mythology, it sets McClane up as an alcoholic who suffers from a hangover throughout the entirety of the film. To tie up loose ends, the film has Gruber suffer from crippling migraines, giving him a reason to have a bottle of aspirin on hand at all times. This, in turn, gives McClane a reason to ask him for a bottle of aspirin while he and Zeus are strapped to a massive bomb on a ship. And, of course, this is the last little piece of the puzzle that falls neatly into place, helping McClane and Co. track Simon down. Why? Because the duty free border shop where Simon purchased the aspirin (on the Canadian border, no less) is listed on the bottom of the bottle...wait, what?
It's around the time that McClane and Zeus split up (McClane to investigate the aqueduct, while Zeus heads to Yankee stadium) that things really start being stretched thin, and the plot begins riding on a series of moments that feel strung together, haphazardly, rather than being an organic extension of plot and setting that the rest of the film achieves so well. The plot edges ridiculously close to complete incoherentness, as everything begins to buckle under a sudden lack of logic, odd editing choices, and an anti-climactic final showdown between hero and villain (Zeus riding shotgun in a helicopter for no other reason than to be there and not take part in the last stand is really, really disappointing).
So GAF, this is my long rant, a case for Die Hard: With a Vengeance. What could have been an action masterpiece is brought down considerably by a disjointed third act.
Still, those first two-thirds...I really do think it's the series at it's very best.
The first half of the film is flawless; McClane is called in from his suspension because a terrorist is setting bombs off in NYC. This is the first time we get to see McClane in his own element...and maybe the point of the Die Hard series was always to pull him out of his element...but here, we get the grand stage of New York as a backdrop to the ensuing mayhem.
New York, in this film, is fully realized. It plays a starring role with minutiae characters being woven in and out of the story that give the city a true sense of place and presence. It's alive with colorful characters who all affect or react to the events that unfold. From people on public phones, to operators at their call centers, to people overhearing news broadcasts on the radio; the film goes out of it's way to make NYC as visual and as memorable as Nakatomi Plaza was in the first film. Even a kid who rides his "getaway bike" past McClane after a petty theft has a way of affecting the story ("It's Christmas, you could steal City Hall"), much in the same way that the guy on the plane who imparts the "fists with your toes" advice to McClane, does.
One of the elements of this film that I appreciate far more than in Die Hard are the police themselves; here we get policemen, firemen, city officials, and various other municipal workers actually doing things that feel real and completely believable. They react to the situation in real ways. Even though they're being played for fools by Simon Gruber (and we'll get to him in a minute), at least we don't have the bumbling idiots from the first film who feel like they're there to deliberately sabotage everything that McClane is trying to do. Again, a role as small as McClane's superior officer feels prominent and relatable. He feels like a person who actually cares about John McClane. "Did you talk to Holly?" he asks, concerned, at the start of the film as McClane nurses a hangover. "Beer is usually taken internally, John." another officer says to him as she helps him get ready for the difficult task ahead.
Again, these are all small side characters who feel like they've known John for quite a while. It's the little details; but they're woven into John's character so well, with little bits of dialogue that are just right, we feel like we've known them as long as we've known John. They are an extension of his character, and the mythology that the series adheres to so well (in the first three, anyway).
Next up, we have the absolutely stellar chemistry between Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson. This is Willis doing some of his best stuff in the series, overall, and it feels like that's a result of Jackson's presence, who thankfully finds his way into the story not long after the film starts. As a result of this pairing, the film dares to play with topical and subversive themes, the strongest of which being the hot-button racial issues that are as relevant today as they were decades ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8n_1qgA2DM
The film was ahead of it's time, in some ways (when's the last time we seen a summer action blockbuster open the way this movie did? You know what scene I'm talking about).
One of the final elements of the film that really stands out is the villain himself, Simon Gruber. Dare I say it, he's the perfect follow-up to his brother, Hans. You couldn't have found a better master criminal than in Jeremy Irons portrayal of the methodical, intelligent, and highly sophisticated ex-soldier whose real motivation is the biggest gold heist in U.S. history. McClane is just a means to an end, and Simon is even happy to let the death of his brother slide and leave him to wallow in defeat, until McClane shows up at his front doorstep, that is. Simon is one of the truly great "polite villains" of cinema; he's a gentleman and a good sport who plays by his own twisted set of principles. You can't help but love to hate the guy, much in the same way we do Hans. The real fun is in Simon's riddles and mind games that he lays out for McClane and Zeus. These should have continued to build right up until the very end, but sadly that's where the film goes off the rails in the third act.
If there's one thing that With A Vengeance is guilty of, it's straying too far from it's initial story beats and structure and leading us into a third act which feels all over the map and stitched together from a number of ideas. In trying to give the film it's own "continuity" within the Die Hard mythology, it sets McClane up as an alcoholic who suffers from a hangover throughout the entirety of the film. To tie up loose ends, the film has Gruber suffer from crippling migraines, giving him a reason to have a bottle of aspirin on hand at all times. This, in turn, gives McClane a reason to ask him for a bottle of aspirin while he and Zeus are strapped to a massive bomb on a ship. And, of course, this is the last little piece of the puzzle that falls neatly into place, helping McClane and Co. track Simon down. Why? Because the duty free border shop where Simon purchased the aspirin (on the Canadian border, no less) is listed on the bottom of the bottle...wait, what?
It's around the time that McClane and Zeus split up (McClane to investigate the aqueduct, while Zeus heads to Yankee stadium) that things really start being stretched thin, and the plot begins riding on a series of moments that feel strung together, haphazardly, rather than being an organic extension of plot and setting that the rest of the film achieves so well. The plot edges ridiculously close to complete incoherentness, as everything begins to buckle under a sudden lack of logic, odd editing choices, and an anti-climactic final showdown between hero and villain (Zeus riding shotgun in a helicopter for no other reason than to be there and not take part in the last stand is really, really disappointing).
So GAF, this is my long rant, a case for Die Hard: With a Vengeance. What could have been an action masterpiece is brought down considerably by a disjointed third act.
Still, those first two-thirds...I really do think it's the series at it's very best.
