“Think fast. Look alive. Die hard.” That is the tagline 20th Century Fox put on Die Hard with a Vengeance in 1995, and it is a fair warning about what the film demands of its hero and its audience. John McTiernan, who directed the original Die Hard in 1988, came back for the third installment. Bruce Willis returns as NYPD Lieutenant John McClane. Jeremy Irons plays the villain Simon. Samuel L. Jackson plays a shopkeeper named Zeus Carver who gets pulled into the mess against his will.
The film runs 128 minutes. It is an action thriller, and it is never boring.
Trailer, via Grindhouse Movie Trailers.
A Bomb at the Bonwit Teller
The film opens with a bomb blowing up the Bonwit Teller department store during the morning commute. A man calling himself Simon phones the New York Police Department and claims responsibility. He does not ask for money right away. He asks for McClane.
Simon runs his demands as a game of “Simon Says.” His first order is that McClane walk through Harlem wearing a sandwich board with a racial slur written on it. The New York Police Department comply. They send McClane to Harlem, where he is confronted by Zeus Carver, a black electrician and shop owner. A group of black men also confront McClane over the sign. Carver intervenes and saves him. The two escape in a taxi.
That opening is the best thing in Die Hard with a Vengeance. It is ugly, funny and fast, and it puts two men who cannot stand each other in the same cab. The film knows the partnership is the engine. Everything after this is a chase.
Simon Says, and the Clock Runs
At 1 Police Plaza, Simon demands that McClane and Carver follow a timed challenge or he will set off more bombs. They agree. McClane boards the 3 train heading toward the Wall Street station to defuse a bomb Simon planted there. Carver reaches the station first. McClane finds the bomb and throws it off the train onto the tracks just as it explodes.
This is the pattern for the whole middle of the film. Simon calls. A clock starts. McClane and Carver run. A bomb goes off or does not. The film has no interest in slowing down. The problem is that the games start to blur. A bomb on a train, a bomb in a school — each one is loud, and none of them lands as hard as the sandwich board in Harlem.
The Gruber Name
McClane and Carver regroup with the New York Police Department and meet FBI and CIA agents. The agents first tell them Simon is “Peter Krieg,” a mercenary and former colonel in the East German National People’s Army. Then they reveal the truth. Krieg’s real name is Simon Peter Gruber. He is the brother of Hans Gruber, the man McClane killed years earlier in Los Angeles.
That reveal is the film’s best idea and its biggest crutch. Jeremy Irons plays Simon with a cold, amused calm that is genuinely unsettling. But the movie leans on the audience’s memory of the first film. Simon is not Hans. He is Hans with a family tree.
The Cast, and Who Almost Had the Part
The cast is deep, and the film uses it well. Larry Bryggman plays Chief Walter Cobb. Graham Greene plays Joe Lambert. Anthony Peck plays Ricky Walsh. Nicholas Wyman plays Mathias Targo. Kevin Chamberlin plays Charles Weiss. Colleen Camp plays Connie Kowalski. Sam Phillips plays Katya. Michael Alexander Jackson plays Dexter, and Aldis Hodge plays Raymond.
The role of Zeus Carver was almost someone else’s. Laurence Fishburne was originally offered the part, and it was written for him. He wanted a higher fee. Producer Andy Vajna held out on the deal. Fishburne had earlier turned down the role of Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction, which went to Samuel L. Jackson. His representatives talked him out of Jules because they wanted him to take only leading parts, or he would be stuck as a supporting actor.
Pulp Fiction premiered at the Cannes Film Festival during the same stretch as Fishburne’s pay negotiations for Carver. Vajna attended the event to support Willis, who was in the Quentin Tarantino film. Tarantino recalled that Vajna was so impressed by Jackson’s performance that he offered him the part of Carver instead. Fishburne later sued Vajna’s company Cinergi for reneging on a verbal agreement. The suit settled before trial. Fishburne received $750,000 and a guarantee that Cinergi would option a screenplay he had written.
Jackson is the reason to watch Die Hard with a Vengeance. He is the only person on screen who seems to be having a good time, and he gives Carver a spine that the script does not always earn.
What the Film Gets Wrong
Die Hard with a Vengeance was adapted from a spec script by Jonathan Hensleigh. It was the first film in the series not based directly on a literary source, and the first not produced by Joel Silver and Lawrence Gordon. Both producers had a falling out with Willis. Andrew G. Vajna’s Cinergi Pictures produced it instead. Principal photography took place in New York City and South Carolina.
You can feel the seams. The film is long, and the last act trades the city for a gold heist. McClane and Carver learn that the terrorists plan to steal the gold bullion of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Simon extorted the city with bombs and games, and the gold was the prize underneath it.
That is a clean twist, and it is also a cheat. The film spends an hour making us care about Simon’s obsession with McClane, then hands the finale to a vault. It works as a plot. It does not work as a story.
The Box Office and the Score
Die Hard with a Vengeance was released on May 19, 1995 by 20th Century Fox. It grossed $366 million worldwide, which made it the highest-grossing film of the year. It initially received mixed reviews from critics.
Here is the running order of the series as it stood in 1995:
| Year | Film | Director |
|---|---|---|
| 1988 | Die Hard | John McTiernan |
| 1990 | Die Hard 2 | John McTiernan |
| 1995 | Die Hard with a Vengeance | John McTiernan |
The gross is the gross. It says the name still sold tickets in 1995.
The good parts are worth naming:
- The sandwich board in Harlem, which is the film’s sharpest and most uncomfortable scene.
- Samuel L. Jackson as Zeus Carver, who gives the movie a second pulse.
- Jeremy Irons as Simon, who is a worthy villain even when the script leans on his brother’s name.
- The 3 train bomb sequence, which is the cleanest piece of action in the film.
The bad parts are just as clear. The riddles are not as clever as the film thinks. The gold heist is a different movie bolted onto this one. And the film never finds a reason for Carver to stay after the first hour, so it simply keeps him.
Our Verdict
Die Hard with a Vengeance is a 5.8 of 10. It is a competent action film with a great cast and one genuinely great idea, and it is the moment the series started coasting. McTiernan can still stage a chase. Willis can still take a beating. Jackson is a real find. But the film mistakes noise for tension and a family connection for a motive.
The first Die Hard worked because McClane was a man in the wrong place at the wrong time. This one makes him the point of the whole plan. That is a bigger role and a smaller movie.
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