DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE

By the time Die Hard with a Vengeance begins, John McClane isn't exactly doing well.

His marriage has fallen apart, his police career is in trouble, and he's drinking far too much.

Then somebody blows up a department store in Manhattan.

The man claiming responsibility calls himself Simon, and he has one very specific demand.

He wants John McClane.

What follows is a deadly game of Simon Says played across New York City, with McClane forced from one increasingly dangerous challenge to another while the police desperately try to work out what Simon actually wants.

It's a great way of bringing McClane back.

He's not travelling somewhere and accidentally stumbling into trouble this time.

Trouble has specifically come looking for him.

The smartest decision Die Hard with a Vengeance makes is to give McClane someone to bounce off.

Samuel L. Jackson plays Zeus Carver, a Harlem shopkeeper who gets dragged into Simon's game after helping McClane survive his first challenge.

He has absolutely no interest in becoming John McClane's sidekick.

Which, naturally, means that's pretty much what happens.

The chemistry between Willis and Jackson gives the film a completely different energy than the first two movies.

They're constantly arguing.

They don't particularly like each other at first.

Neither has much patience for the other's bullshit.

But as Simon sends them racing from one side of Manhattan to the other, that hostility gradually develops into one of the franchise's best partnerships.

It's effectively a buddy movie hidden inside a Die Hard film.

And it works brilliantly.

Alan Rickman's Hans Gruber cast a long shadow over the Die Hard franchise.

Trying to simply create Hans Gruber 2.0 would have been a mistake.

Instead, Jeremy Irons' Simon is colder and more calculating.

He isn't trapped inside a building with McClane.

He's somewhere out there.

Watching.

Planning.

Calling.

And apparently controlling an entire city from a distance.

His games turn New York itself into the film's action playground, sending McClane and Zeus underground, through traffic, across parks and into situations where thousands of lives could potentially be at risk.

Eventually we discover that Simon's interest in McClane isn't random at all.

Simon is Hans Gruber's brother.

Suddenly the title makes perfect sense.

This isn't simply another terrorist attack.

It's vengeance.

One of the biggest reasons the third film feels closer to the original is the return of director John McTiernan.

McTiernan directed Die Hard in 1988 before Renny Harlin took over for Die Hard 2.

Seven years after Nakatomi Plaza, McTiernan came back.

But instead of recreating the original film, he opened everything up.

The first Die Hard trapped McClane inside one building.

Die Hard with a Vengeance gives him New York City.

The official 20th Century Studios listing credits McTiernan as director, Jonathan Hensleigh as writer and McTiernan and Michael Tadross as producers.

That expanded scale completely changes the rhythm.

This is less a claustrophobic siege movie and more an enormous urban chase.

Yet it still feels unmistakably like Die Hard.

New York isn't just somewhere Die Hard with a Vengeance happens.

The film uses the city constantly.

Harlem.

Central Park.

Wall Street.

The subway.

Taxis.

Bridges.

Traffic jams.

Water tunnels.

McClane and Zeus spend much of the movie desperately trying to get from one part of the city to another while Simon stays several moves ahead.

That gives the film a frantic quality.

The characters rarely feel safe because they can't secure a single location.

The threat could be anywhere.

And because Simon claims to have planted explosives around the city, every crowded public space potentially becomes a target.

The scale is enormous compared with Nakatomi Plaza.

But the stakes still feel personal because Simon's entire plan keeps circling back to McClane.

One of the clever elements of Die Hard with a Vengeance is that the terrorist threat isn't quite what it seems.

Simon keeps the police occupied with bomb threats and increasingly elaborate demands.

McClane and Zeus are sent tearing across Manhattan.

The authorities are stretched everywhere.

While everyone looks in one direction, Simon is working on something much bigger.

A massive robbery.

It's a neat echo of the original Die Hard.

Hans Gruber pretended to be a political terrorist while actually attempting an extraordinary theft.

His brother has learned the same trick.

Create chaos.

Control the authorities.

Then steal a fortune while everybody is distracted.

The Gruber family clearly had a type.

There's something particularly enjoyable about Bruce Willis' performance here.

John McClane isn't polished.

He isn't an indestructible superhero.

For a good chunk of the movie, he looks exhausted, hungover, irritated and completely fed up with everybody around him.

That's exactly why the character works.

McClane's greatest superpower was never muscles or weapons.

It was stubbornness.

He simply refuses to stay down.

Put him on a rooftop.

Throw him onto a moving train.

Flood a tunnel.

Blow something up.

He'll swear, bleed and complain about it.

Then he'll get back up.

Die Hard with a Vengeance understands that version of McClane.

The central trio gives the movie much of its personality.

Bruce Willis — John McClane
The NYPD detective finds himself personally targeted by Simon and dragged into another seemingly impossible situation.

Samuel L. Jackson — Zeus Carver
A Harlem shopkeeper who becomes McClane's reluctant partner after getting caught up in Simon's game.

Jeremy Irons — Simon Gruber
A calculating terrorist with both an enormous plan for New York and a personal reason for tormenting McClane.

Graham Greene — Joe Lambert
An NYPD officer working alongside McClane as the scale of Simon's threat becomes apparent.

Colleen Camp — Connie Kowalski
Part of the police response attempting to understand and contain the crisis.

Larry Bryggman — Inspector Walter Cobb
A senior NYPD figure dealing with Simon's threats against the city.

AFI's catalogue confirms Willis as McClane, Irons as Simon, Jackson as Zeus, Greene as Lambert and Camp as Kowalski.

Director: John McTiernan
Writer: Jonathan Hensleigh
Producers: John McTiernan and Michael Tadross
Cinematography: Peter Menzies Jr.
Editor: John Wright
Music: Michael Kamen
Studio: Twentieth Century Fox / Cinergi Pictures
US Release: 19 May 1995
Runtime: approximately 128 minutes
Rating: R in the United States

20th Century Studios gives the film a runtime of 2 hours 8 minutes and a May 19, 1995 release date, while AFI records a 129-minute archival runtime

By the third movie, the franchise couldn't simply trap McClane in another building.

Die Hard 2 had already stretched the concept to an airport.

Going bigger again could easily have turned the series into a generic action spectacle.

Instead, With a Vengeance changes the formula.

It turns Die Hard into a race.

McClane isn't trying to escape somewhere.

He's trying to get somewhere in time.

Again and again.

That simple change gives the movie its own identity while keeping the ingredients that made the franchise work:

A clever villain.

An impossible situation.

A reluctant hero.

Plans within plans.

And John McClane having possibly the worst day any police officer has ever had in movie history.

The original Die Hard is incredibly difficult to beat.

But if there's one sequel that genuinely deserves to stand beside it, we'd argue it's this one.

Bringing John McTiernan back was important.

Pairing Bruce Willis with Samuel L. Jackson was inspired.

And making Jeremy Irons' villain part of the Gruber story gave the third film a connection to the original without simply repeating it.

It's louder.

It's bigger.

It's less contained.

But it's also enormously entertaining.

Most importantly, it remembers what makes John McClane interesting.

He's not supposed to be the coolest man in the room.

He's the poor bastard who somehow ended up in the room in the first place.

And once again, he's going to have to find a way out.