Review - Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995)

       Hey guys, Chuck here, and today, as it's Memorial Day weekend, I am taking a look at 1995's Die Hard with a Vengeance, directed by John McTiernan, and starring Bruce Willis, Samuel L. jackson, and Jeremy Irons. 

       The movie opens on a typical New York City morning, until a bomb goes off, destroying a store front and causing serious damage. As the New York police scramble to figure out who is responsible, the man behind the attack calls to speak with Inspector Walter Cobb. The caller, calling himself Simon, wants to play a game of "Simon Says," and he requires Lt. John McClane, who is back in the NYPD but is under suspension. Regardless, Simon requires John for this game, and to fail leads to an... explosive penalty. 

        So, Cobb, along with Detectives Connie and Joe, locate John and take him to the first task set by Simon: walk a few blocks in Harlem wearing a highly offensive sandwich board that reads "I Hate N***ers." I think you can put that one together. And, while John almost does get killed by a pack of guys hanging out, a local shop owner named Zeus Carver manages to save John's life. This action by Zeus leads Simon to now require that John and Zeus work together in the game, which starts at a payphone not too far away. Also, the bombs Simon is using are revealed to be chemical based, requiring two seemingly harmless chemicals to mix in order to become volatile and explosive. 

      Unfortunately, it takes them a minute to get on the phone, as a civilian is already using it. Simon then gives them a math puzzle to solve to call his number to prevent a bomb from going off. And, the puzzle is this: "As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives. Each wife had seven sacks. Each sack had seven cats. Each cat had seven kittens. How many were going to St. Ives?" And, while they first considered multiplication to sole the answer, Zeus realized it was a trick, which goes back to the start of the puzzle: "As I was going to St. Ives." Meaning the answer to the puzzle is one. Dialing the number, Simon tells John and Zeus that they're too late, but also remarks that he "never said 'Simon Says.'" But, for the next task, they're required to take ONLY civilian transportation to a payphone in a subway station near Wall Street to prevent a bomb from destroying a train. John and Zeus commandeer a cab, drive through Central Park, and John boards the train to locate the bomb, leaving Zeus to get to the phone. But, as both John AND Zeus needed to be there, Simon detonates the bomb anyway. Luckily, a John tossed it off the train and prevents loss of life. 

       John and Zeus are then taken, along with Cobb, to meet two agents of the FBI, who show them a couple pictures: one is of a man named Mathias Targo and his right-hand woman Katya, while the other is of a former East German military Colonel named Peter Krieg. However, another agent in the van asks John if he's familiar with the name "Gruber," which reminds him of his encounter with Hans Gruber back in Los Angeles. It turns out that Peter Krieg was born Simon Peter Gruber, and he's the brother of Hans Gruber. THIS definitely explains why Simon wanted John to be a part of his game. Anyway, Simon calls again, informing John and Zeus of the location of the next challenge: a public park. Oh, and Simon also warns his largest bomb yet is in a public school somewhere in the city, and it is set to go off. 

        At the park, Simon calls John and Zeus with a riddle: "What has four legs and is always ready to travel?" Zeus instantly recognizes this as an elephant joke, and spots an elephant fountain with a case, and two jugs for water. The case is, indeed, a bomb, and it has a proximity sensor on it. To stop it from going off, John and Zeus must take the two jugs, a five-gallon jug and a three-gallon jug, and fill one of them with exactly four gallons of water to disarm the bomb. And, after some back and forth, John and Zeus succeed. And, Simon lets them know that their next destination is Yankee Stadium. But, something else is going on. 

        While NYPD is scrambling to find which school has the bomb, Simon, along with Targo, Katya, and their crew, are using the destruction on Wall Street to breach the vaults of the Federal Reserve Bank and steal $140 billion dollars in gold bars, loading the gold into dump trucks. John checks in to the Federal Reserve, and finds the aftermath of theft, and he and Zeus follow the trucks to the Aqueduct where, with help from a construction worker named Jerry, John follows Simon and his men while sending Zeus to Yankee Stadium. John and Jerry split, with John sending Jerry to meet with Cobb about the location of the school bomb: Chester A. Arthur Elementary. 

        Zeus reaches Yankee Stadium, only to find a small item with the words "Game Over" taped to the back... and no one around. Zeus rejoins John, where they are able to locate the trucks, with the cache of gold being loaded onto a shipping boat, which they get into from the bridge above. John and Zeus go after Simon, Targo, and a few others, while at the school, Cobb has the building cleared while Charlie of the bomb squad tries to disarm the bomb. But, the bomb in the school is a fake filled with syrup, design to be a diversion. Instead, the ACTUAL bomb was on the boat, with the plan being to blow the stolen contents of the Federal Reserve Bank, with John and Zeus attached to the bomb. As for why Simon wants John dead? Well, while he and John agree that Hans was an asshole, Simon still cared enough to get back at John for dropping Hans out of a window at Nakatomi Plaza in LA. 

       Luckily, John and Zeus escape, and it's revealed that there is no gold on the boat. Instead, Simon, Katya, and the rest of Simon's men, save for Targo who is killed by Katya, took it with them to Canada. Following a clue on a bottle of aspirin, John and Zeus follow suit. This leads to a showdown with Simon, who is in a helicopter, and John, who shoots out a power line, sending it swinging at the helicopter's rotor, with the remark "Say hello to your brother. Yippie-ki-yay, motherfucker." And, with everything done, John and Zeus return to New York. 

       Die Hard with a Vengeance had been reevaluated in recent years, and is widely considered as the best of the Die Hard sequel. Starting life as a spec script called "Simon Says" by Jonathan Hensleigh, the movie definitely came together once it was decided to make the titular Simon connect to Hans Gruber, and making the film the third chapter of the Die Hard series. 

        The performances of the main trio of Bruce Willis as John McClane, Samuel L. Jackson as Zeus, and Jeremy Irons as Simon were all fantastic. Other performances like Colleen Camp as Connie, Graham Greene as Joe, Larry Bryggman as Cobb, Nick Wyman as Targo, and Sam Phillips as Katya were also fantastic, and definitely helped flesh the story out. 

      And, of course, the action scenes were fantastic. But, it was the back-and-forth between Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson that made this movie work, as their banter was genuinely hysterical. And, I think it's just great seeing John McClane partnering up with someone less familiar with the kind of insanity that John goes through. And, while later Die Hard movies would do something similar, and believe me when I say we'll get to those, it just pales in comparison to seeing Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson running around New York together. 

       Overall, I genuinely love Die Hard with a Vengeance, as it serves as both a fun action movie and a perfect follow-up to the original film, and I definitely recommend checking it out. 

      Alright guys, this is Chuck signing off, and I'll see you in the next review.