Die Hard with a Vengeance

Die Hard with a Vengeance
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John McTiernan
Produced by	John McTiernan Michael Tadross Robert H. Lemer David Willis Andrew G. Vajna Buzz Feitshans Robert Lawrence
Written by	Jonathan Hensleigh
Based on	Characters by 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
Studio	Cinergi Pictures
Distributed by	20th Century Fox (North America) Touchstone Pictures Buena Vista Pictures Distribution (International)
Release date(s)	May 19, 1995 (1995-05-19)
Running time	131 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$90 million
Box office	$366,101,666

Die Hard with a Vengeance is a 1995 American action film and the third in the Die Hard film series. It was produced and directed by John McTiernan (who directed the first film), written by Jonathan Hensleigh, and stars Bruce Willis as NYPD Lieutenant John McClane, Samuel L. Jackson as McClane's reluctant partner Zeus Carver, and Jeremy Irons as Simon Peter Gruber. It was released on May 19, 1995 and followed by Live Free or Die Hard 12 years later.

Plot

On a summer morning in New York City, a bomb detonates destroying the Bonwitt Teller department store. Later, a man calling himself "Simon" phones Major Case Unit Inspector Walter Cobb of the New York City Police Department, claiming responsibility for the bomb. He demands that suspended police officer Lt. John McClane (Bruce Willis) be dropped in Harlem, wearing a sandwich board that says "I hate Niggers". Harlem shop owner Zeus Carver (Samuel L. Jackson) spots McClane and tries to get him off the street before he is killed, but a gang of black youths attack the pair, who barely escape. Returning to the station, they learn that Simon is believed to have stolen several thousand gallons of a bi-chemical agent explosive. Simon calls again demanding McClane and Carver put themselves through a series of "games" to prevent more explosions.

McClane and Carver are instructed by Simon to travel to Wall Street station 90 blocks south, within 30 minutes to stop a bomb planted on a Brooklyn-bound 3 train. McClane succeeds in locating and throwing the bomb off the train but it detonates, causing the rear car on the train to derail, demolishing many of the station's support columns. FBI agents tell McClane that Simon is Simon "Peter" Gruber (Jeremy Irons), brother of the Hans Gruber killed by McClane in the first film. The agents believe Simon wants revenge on McClane for his brother's death. During the debriefing, Simon calls again claiming that another bomb is planted in one of the city schools, and is sensitive to police radio signals. As McClane and Carver are forced to complete more riddles to identify the school, the police organize a citywide search of schools, and shut down the police radio band.

While playing at Simon's games a chance remark by a shoplifter makes McClane realize that they are being distracted to keep them away from Wall Street, and Simon's revenge motive is a cover for a heist. Returning downtown, he finds Simon's men, disguised as cops, businessmen, construction workers, and guards, have raided the Federal Reserve Bank and made off with $140 billion of gold bullion in 14 stolen dump trucks.

After killing Simon's henchmen at the bank, McClane trails the dump trucks to an aqueduct in the New York City Water Tunnel No. 3, capturing one of the trucks, but Simon destroys a cofferdam flooding the tunnel; McClane is thrown clear and regroups with Carver. They continue to follow the dump trucks to a tanker, but are captured attempting to board. The police locate and attempt to evacuate the school they think the bomb is in (which is the one Carver's nephews attend). As timer reaches zero, the police discover that the bomb is only a decoy. Meanwhile, McClane and Carver find that Simon has instead used the remaining explosive to rig the tanker to explode, which would send the gold to the bottom of the sea. Simon leaves the tanker, leaving McClane and Carver tied up next to the bomb, but they manage to escape the doomed ship just before it detonates.

As they regroup with the police and have their wounds tended to, McClane theorizes that there was no gold on the ship, which ultimately proves correct as it was replaced with scrap metal, and Simon has likely escaped. While phoning to make amends with his estranged wife Holly, McClane realises an aspirin bottle given to him earlier by Simon gives an address in a bordertown of Quebec. McClane alongside the Royal Canadian Mounted Police raid the warehouse where Simon and his men are preparing to distribute the gold. Simon escapes in a helicopter, attempting to shoot McClane from the air, but McClane shoots a power line which hits the helicopter and destroys it. Carver joins McClane and convinces him to finish his call to Holly at a nearby pay phone.

Cast

• Bruce Willis as Lieutenant John McClane
• Jeremy Irons as Simon Peter Gruber, a cunning and clever psychopath who decides to seek revenge on John McClane for the death of his brother Hans Gruber
• Samuel L. Jackson as Zeus Carver, a Harlem electrician. Laurence Fishburne was originally offered the role but turned it down.
• Graham Greene as Joe Lambert, a detective in McClane's squad
• Colleen Camp as Connie Kowalski, the female detective in McClane's squad
• Larry Bryggman as Inspector Walter Cobb, the head of McClane's police unit
• Anthony Peck as Ricky Walsh, another detective in McClane's squad
• Nick Wyman as Mathias Targo, a freelance terrorist partnering with Simon
• Sam Phillips as Katya, a mute female terrorist working with Simon
• Kevin Chamberlin as Charles Weiss, NYPD bomb defusal expert
• Richard E. Council as Otto, Simon's henchman

Alternative endings

An alternative ending to the one shown in the final movie was filmed with Jeremy Irons and Bruce 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 in Nova Scotia, and has the gold turned into statuettes of the Empire State Building in order to smuggle it out of the country; but he is still tracked down to his foreign hideaway (this version 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 was 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 that has had the sights removed, meaning it is impossible to determine 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 is likely that the relatively low-velocity rocket would not 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 is 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.

Soundtrack

Michael Kamen returned to score the third film, again incorporating other material into his score (most notably When Johnny Comes Marching Home, not included on the soundtrack album), but excerpts from his score for Die Hard 2 were tracked into the new film. The soundtrack was released by RCA Victor.

1. Summer in the City – The Lovin' Spoonful (2:44)
2. Goodbye Bonwits (6:28)
3. Got it Covered – Fu-Schnickens (4:13)
4. John and Zeus (3:19)
5. In Front of Kids – Extra Prolific (2:44)
6. Papaya King (5:20)
7. Take A-nother Train (2:55)
8. The Iron Foundry – Alexander Mosolov (3:08)
9. Waltz of the Bankers (4:13)
10. Gold Vault (march of the ants) (3:45)
11. Surfing in the Aqueduct (2:30)
12. Symphony No. 1 – Johannes Brahms (15:00)
13. Symphony No. 9 – Ludwig van Beethoven (9:46)

Reception

Critical reaction

The film received mixed reviews with a 50% rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly stated that while "McTiernan stages individual sequences with great finesse... they don't add up to a taut, dread-ridden whole." James Berardinelli thought that the explosions and fights were "filmed with consummate skill, and are thrilling in their own right." Samuel L. Jackson was also praised in the film. Desson Howe of the Washington Post thought that "the best thing about the movie is the relationship between McClane and Zeus," saying that Jackson was "almost as good as he was in Pulp Fiction." Roger Ebert gave the film a positive review, praising the action sequences and the performances of Willis, Jackson, and Irons, concluding: "Die Hard with a Vengeance is basically a wind-up action toy, cleverly made, and delivered with high energy. It delivers just what it advertises, with a vengeance."

Box office

The film earned $100,012,499 in the United States, while it earned $266,089,167 in foreign markets, giving its total gross of $366,101,666 and was the highest grossing film of 1995.

External links

• Die Hard with a Vengeance at the Internet Movie Database
• Die Hard with a Vengeance at AllRovi
• Die Hard with a Vengeance at Rotten Tomatoes
• Die Hard with a Vengeance at Box Office Mojo