Die Hard with a Vengeance
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Die Hard with a Vengeance | |
|---|---|
 Die Hard with a Vengeance movie poster |
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| Directed by | John McTiernan |
| Produced by | John McTiernan Michael Tadross |
| Written by | Roderick Thorp Jonathan Hensleigh |
| Starring | Bruce Willis Samuel L. Jackson Jeremy Irons Graham Greene |
| Distributed by | -USA- 20th Century Fox -Non-USA- Cinergi Productions through Buena Vista International |
| Release date(s) | May 19, 1995 (USA premiere) |
| Running time | 131 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $90,000,000 US (est.) |
| Preceded by | Die Hard 2 |
| Followed by | Live Free or Die Hard |
| IMDb profile | |
Die Hard with a Vengeance is the third film in the Die Hard series starring Bruce Willis as policeman John McClane. Vengeance introduces Samuel L. Jackson as new character Zeus Carver, Willis' reluctant partner. Jeremy Irons plays the main villain. It was directed by John McTiernan and written by Jonathan Hensleigh. Unlike the first two Die Hard films, this film contains a great deal less violence and considerably more dialogue and character development, while still being action-packed.
Taglines:
- "Think fast. Look alive. Die hard."
- "On a good day he's a great cop. On a bad day he's the best there is."
- "McClane is back", "This time, it's personal."
- "It's boomtime in the big apple."
- "John McClane is about to have a very bad day."
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
The villain in this movie is Simon Gruber (Jeremy Irons), brother of Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman, who, like Irons, was a British actor playing a German). Hans was a German criminal who was killed by NYPD cop John McClane (Bruce Willis) at the climax of Die Hard, the first film in the series. Simon, it appears at first, is out to avenge his brother's death but it soon appears that other motives are at work and that dealing with McClane is simply a bonus.
Simon begins by blowing up a bomb in a busy street and telling the police that McClane must walk through Harlem displaying a sandwich board with racist slogans on it. When some offended African-Americans threaten him, they are held away at gunpoint by shopkeeper and black activist Zeus Carver (Samuel L. Jackson). Carver gets McClane away, not out of concern for a white man but that the colleagues of a white cop might go gunning for every black man in the area if one of their own is killed. Simon now insists that this "Good Samaritan" become part of the game whether he likes it or not.
Simon has planted real and phoney bombs throughout the city, and forces McClane and Carver to participate in a game of "Simon says", which usually consists of giving them information about a bomb and giving them a chance to defuse it.
The games of Simon Says they play are:
- First at a phone booth, where Simon tells them the As I Was Going to St Ives riddle which they answer correctly but too late. They needed to dial 555 then the answer within a time limit or a bomb would go off. Fortunately Simon didn't say "Simon Says" so there is no bomb.
- McClane is told that they have half an hour to go to a phone box at a subway station near Wall Street from where they are on the upper west side. To do this, McClane drives through Central Park and makes a phone call for an ambulance which they follow through heavy traffic. McClane manages to climb into the subway train from an above grating and finds the bomb, quickly chucking it out the train window. Only Zeus makes it to the station to pick up the call. Simon says that McClane's absence is a breach of the rules and the bomb is detonated (although it was set to go off anyway).
- They have to use a 3 gallon jug and 5 gallon jug to put exactly 4 gallons of water onto a scale to deactivate a briefcase bomb. (See the Trivia section below.)
- "What is 21 out of 42?" Zeus figures out that there have been 42 Presidents of the United States, but is unable to remember who the 21st was. Later, a truck driver tells McClane it is Chester A. Arthur and it identifies a school in which Simon claims to have placed a bomb - Chester A. Arthur Elementary School, where Zeus's nephews are currently in class. However, Gruber has other plans for the bulk of his explosives, and the bomb the police find in the school is a dummy filled with syrup.
So far the police has been led to believe that all this is an overblown act of revenge. But in fact it is really just a diversion from Simon Gruber's real aim: robbing the high-security vault in the basement of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which holds the gold of several foreign nations, even more than Fort Knox.
The need to search the thousands of schools in New York means that the police, emergency and Federal agencies are all occupied elsewhere. This enables Gruber and his army of East European mercenaries to break into the vault and make their escape with a dozen dump trucks filled to the brim with gold bars.
McClane and Carver eventually see through the plan and catch up with the gang as they embark their trucks on board a ship. They are captured and left on the ship with a huge bomb.
(At this point they hold a heart-to-heart, with McClane admitting that he and his wife are yet again estranged, and Carver trying to convince him to try to at least call her.)
They manage to escape the ship just as the bomb explodes. Gruber has led them to believe that the gold was still aboard the ship and that the whole thing was a plot to upset the world economy. But McClane guesses that it is yet another diversion and that the gold is safely elsewhere.
McClane has managed to obtain a bottle of Gruber's aspirin. A label shows that they were purchased from a pharmacy in Quebec. This leads him and Carver to a warehouse in the area where Gruber and his gang have indeed taken the gold. In the final battle that follows Gruber is sent to join his late brother.
[edit] Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Bruce Willis | John McClane |
| Jeremy Irons | Simon Gruber |
| Samuel L. Jackson | Zeus Carver |
| Graham Greene | Joe Lambert |
| Colleen Camp | Connie Kowalski |
| Larry Bryggman | Insp. Walter Cobb |
| Anthony Peck | Ricky Walsh |
| Nicholas Wyman | Mathias Targo |
| Sam Phillips | Katya |
| Kevin Chamberlin | Charles Weiss |
| Sharon Washington | Officer Jane |
| Stephen Pearlman | Dr. Fred Schiller |
| Michael Alexander Jackson | Dexter |
| Aldis Hodge | Raymond |
| Mischa Hausserman | Mischa |
[edit] Trivia
- An early idea for a third Die Hard film was to adapt a screenplay called Troubleshooter in which McClane would fight terrorists on a Caribbean cruise. This idea was scuppered by the release of Under Siege. Another idea was to set the story on the Los Angeles subway, with McClane's daughter kidnapped by terrorists who mistake her for a VIP.
- The movie is based on a script written by Jonathan Hensleigh originally titled Simon Says, which was originally conceived as a Brandon Lee action film, then later considered for use as the fourth installment of the Lethal Weapon series. The first half of Die Hard with a Vengeance is almost identical to Simon Says; the robbery was added to bring the story in line with other Die Hard films. The original plan was to have the villains burgle the Metropolitan Museum of Art, an idea not used here, but which appears in John McTiernan's film The Thomas Crown Affair.
- One major flaw to the movie's storyline comes just after the St. Ives riddle, when Simon informs McClane and Zeus about a bomb on a subway train, and that in order to prevent its detonation they must reach a payphone inside Wall Street station within 30 minutes - 90 blocks from their current location. We later realize that the bomb was intended to explode in order to aid the efforts of Simon and his group in robbing the Federal Reserve Bank. During the race across Manhattan, McClane manages to intercept the subway train where he locates the bomb and procedes to throw it out the back of the train. It explodes without causing any loss of life and few casualties. Had the bomb not been found by McClane it would have exploded directly inside a busy carriage and close to the platform of Wall Street station causing huge loss of life and a state of emergency. The area would have been teeming with emergency crews, the media and possibly the military, thus making Simon's robbery attempts nigh on impossible.
- Another plot flaw is easily observable to fans of the James Bond film Goldfinger, which describes, but does not execute, a similar heist with Fort Knox as the target - the logistics of the task are just too great to carry out in the period of time allowed in the film. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York gold depository contains roughly 5,000 tonnes of gold, and the value of $140 billion quoted by Simon in the film represents about 8,000 tonnes at $500 an ounce. Even the lower figure would require the services of fifty fully loaded Boeing 747 aircraft. The fourteen dump trucks in the film would simply not be up to the task.
- Though the details are vague in the film, the solution to the water-jug bomb would work in theory, through simple addition and subtraction: It is done by filling the 5 gallon jug and pouring 3 gallons from the 5 gallon jug, leaving 2 gallons of water in the 5 gallon jug. The 3 gallon jug is emptied and 2 gallons from the 5 gallon are poured into it, which leaves 1 gallon of empty space. They fill the 5 gallon jug and empty one gallon from the 5 gallon into the 3 gallon jug, leaving exactly 4 gallons in the 5 gallon jug. (It is, however, highly unlikely that it would ever work in practice within the error margin of one ounce required by the bomb, as the jugs do not have a clearly marked level and McClane and Carver have no way to easily pour water from one jug to another without spilling at least an ounce here and there.)
- There is a second way to complete the jug problem. Fill the 3 gallon jug and pour it into the 5 gallon jug. Fill the 3 gallon jug again, and pour it into the remaining space in the 5 gallon jug. This will leave 1 gallon of water in the 3 gallon jug. Empty the 5 gallon jug completely, and then pour the contents of the 1 gallon jug into the empty 5 gallon jug. Fill the 3 gallon jug and then pour the contents into the 5 gallon jug.
- Dick Cheney, the current Vice President of the United States, plays a non-speaking bit part as a New York official. The director pointed him out on the DVD audio commentary.
- Pop singer Sam Phillips, who plays a stealthy killer, was originally supposed to have dialogue in the film, but it was decided that her character appeared much more lethal if she were silent. She was chosen for the film based on an 'audition,' when one of her CD covers was obtained by the film's producers.
- According to the DVD audio commentary, one original ending had McClane and Carver floating back to shore on a makeshift raft after the explosion at sea. Carver says it's 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.
- An alternate ending was scripted and shot, wherein Simon gets away with the theft, but is confronted a year later in Europe by McClane. In the alternate ending, McClane forces Gruber to answer a series of children's riddles before tricking Gruber into killing himself with a rocket launcher. The scene is included in the DVD. (see alternative ending)
- Die Hard with a Vengeance was the first in the series not to take place during the Christmas holidays (though several references are made to Santa and Christmas) and the first where John McClane is an active police officer on his own patch. Also significant is that for the first time he has an on-screen partner, Zeus Carver almost throughout. In Die Hard Sgt. Powell was aiding McClane, but they didn't meet until the end. In Die Hard 2 the air-traffic controller was a partner for the first half, replaced by the janitor for the second. Die Hard with a Vengeance does follow the same pattern as the previous two films, as his partner appears after the 'terrorist' has appeared, is pulled into the plot due to the McClane's actions, helps and hinders action sequences, and he and the partner did not know each other to begin with. It's interesting to note that with the exception of the janitor in Die Hard 2, who served no real purpose other than give McClane directions and the un-coded radio, all the 'side-kicks' have been black until now — for the fourth installment of the series, Live Free or Die Hard, Justin Long is cast for that role.
- The UK version of the film is heavily censored (like Die Hard 2 before it, although this was later released uncut), with three or more scenes of violence trimmed, lines often comically dubbed into inoffensive incarnations (the word "goddamn" being changed to "damn", despite the former not considered particularly offensive to the UK populace) and several instances of offensive language being excised altogether. The American DVD version of Die Hard with A Vengeance is the preferred version by UK audiences, and available from many online stores.
- In order to avoid starting a riot when filming the scenes in Harlem, the sandwich board that McClane wears actually said "I hate everyone". The word "niggers" was later superimposed over "everyone" in post-production, though the unaltered version is sometimes used on network transmissions and on aeroplane showings.
[edit] Alternative ending
In an alternative ending found on the special edition DVD it is presumed that the robbery succeeds, with McClane catching up with Gruber months later in Austria. His career is in ruins and he is keen to take it out on Gruber whom he invites to play a game called "McClane Says". This involves a form of Russian Roulette with a small Chinese rocket launcher with the sights removed, meaning it cannot be determined which end is which. McClane then asks Gruber some riddles similar to the ones he played in New York. When Gruber gets a riddle wrong, McClane forces him at gunpoint to fire the launcher, which blows Gruber to bits.
In the DVD audio commentary, Jonathan Hensleigh claims that this version was dropped because it showed a more cruel and menacing side to McClane, a man who killed for revenge rather than in self-defence. Hensleigh's intention was to show that the events in New York and the subsequent repercussions had tilted him psychologically.
In this version Gruber has dumped or double-crossed most of his accomplices and had the gold turned into statuettes of a famous landmark (in this case the Empire State Building) in order to smuggle it out of the country. But the cop still manages to track him down to his foreign hideaway. This is reminiscent of Alec Guiness' situation in the British heist movie The Lavender Hill Mob.
Note: On the UK DVD, the featurette is not easily found on the Special-Edition second disk, as it is within a section labelled Commentary rather than alternative ending.
[edit] See also
[edit] External link
| The Die Hard films |
|---|
| Die Hard | Die Hard 2 | Die Hard with a Vengeance | Live Free or Die Hard |
| Characters |
| John McClane | Hans Gruber | Colonel Stuart | Simon Gruber | Zeus Carver |
| Video games |
| Die Hard | Die Hard Arcade | Die Hard Trilogy | Die Hard Trilogy 2 | Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza | Die Hard: Vendetta |
