Face-Off: Die Hard With a Vengeance vs. Lethal Weapon 3

Bruce Willis as John McClane
Samuel L. Jackson as Zeus Carver
Jeremy Irons as Simon Gruber
Graham Greene as Joe Lambert
Larry Bryggman as Walter Cobb
Colleen Camp as Connie Kowalski
Anthony Peck as Ricky Walsh
Sam Phillips as Katya
Kevin Chamberlin as Charles Weiss

Because Renny Harlin isn’t quite as good at this as John McTiernan is, the latter jumped back on the DIE HARD train after directing the first iconic outing after the former did a …okay job with the sequel. While he doesn’t craft the same kind of taut, suspenseful thrills as he did the first time around, McTiernan once again demonstrated his skills at crafting terrifically entertaining and bonkers action. Kicking things off (die)hard and never letting the foot off the gas, he weaves in some fantastic set pieces that keep escalating in scale and almost levels New York on a scale normally reserved for Transformers. Working with editor John Wright, he made typical car chases and destructive set pieces look like an art form, coming at each from various angles and vantage points to give them a sense of scale and velocity. In the hands of a less experienced director, the car chase through the park could've looked clunky as hell, showing the car crashing through the same pretzel stand on in three separate shots. But McTiernan is a pro and churned out some top-tier 90s thrills filmed excellently. He’s also the best director to understand what makes John McClane an action icon, getting that everyman quality out of Willis’ performance, and putting the character through hell so that by the end, he’s caked and in blood and limping to the finale (or at least the first half of the finale). He’s also able to lace in a partner for McClane in Jackson’s Zeus Carver, getting both the kind of performance and abundance of perfectly-executed “motherfuckers!” out of him that have made him a legend.  

After bouncing around and even reworked as a LETHAL WEAPON movie by Warner Bros., Jonathan Hensleigh’s script titled SIMON SAYS was eventually reworked as this third DIE HARD outing. Even as a reworked concept, DIE HARD 3’s story fits nicely in the McClane arc and provides room for tons of awesomely excessive violence, and albeit some mostly poor attempts at examining social/racial issues. After throwing Hans Gruber off Nakatomi Tower in the first movie, this third one finds his almost equally charming and devious brother, Simon, sending McClane on a mad dash across New York as a distraction so he can steal billions upon billions in Federal Reserve gold. Nothing in this script operates on a small scale, with huge stakes and huge personalities constantly clashing. It’s a story that’s constantly moving and works perfectly for a wild action movie. Even among all the chaos, the villain’s motivations remain clear, as do the heroes’ goals, even if McClane doesn’t have much growth to do as a character. Perhaps an unexpected surprise at the time and more than enough reason to rewatch 25 years later, one of the best parts of the movie is the dynamic between John and Zeus, both coming from very different walks of life, the latter feeling like a full character and not just a side character for John to riff off. It’s not the smartest script, even though it tries to be from some angles, but it’s focused enough and doesn’t ignore the very human central hero at its core, which is really saying something for the likes of such a crazy movie.

Bits:

What a lovely day OH MY GOD AN EXPLOSION!

Zeus Saves McClane

Pay Phone Riddle 1

Cut Through the Park

Subway Explosion

Gruber’s Brother!

Breaking into the Federal Reserve!

Elevator Kills

Tidal Wave

Chase in the Rain

Tightrope

Fight on the Ship

Leaping from the Explosion

Helicopter Shootout

Lines:

Zeus: “He didn't say Jésus. He said, 'Hey, Zeus!' My name is Zeus.”
McClane: “Zeus?”
Zeus: “Yeah, Zeus! As in, father of Apollo? Mt. Olympus? Don't fuck with me or I'll shove a lightning bolt up your ass? Zeus! You got a problem with that?”

—–

McClane: “Yippie-kai-yay motherfucker.”

—–

Zeus: “And who do we not want to help us?”
Dexter & Raymond: “White people.”
Zeus: “That's right. Now get on outta here. Go to school.”

—–

McClane: “I threw his little brother off the thirty-second floor of Nakatomi Towers out in L.A. I guess he's a little pissed off about it.”
Zeus: “Wait a minute. You mean to tell me I'm in this shit 'cause some white cop threw some white asshole's brother off a roof?”

—–

McClane: “Listen, you fail I cover your ass. I fail you cover my ass!”
Zeus: “And if we both fail?”
McClane: “Then we're both fucked!”

—–

Zeus: “Didn't I hear you say you didn't even like your brother?”
Simon: “There's a difference, you know, between not liking one's brother and not caring when some dumb Irish flatfoot drops him out of a window.”

—–

Simon: “My only problem is that I went to some trouble preparing that game for McClane. You interfered with a well-laid plan.”
Zeus: “Yeah, well, you can stick your well-laid plan up your well-laid ass.”

—–

McClane: “You don't know how to shoot a gun?”
Zeus: “Look, all brothers don't know how to shoot guns, you racist motherfucker.”

—–

Zeus: “Duck, motherfucker!”

—–

As I mentioned when discussing McTiernan, the man knows how to film his action sequences. The stage is set with an out-of-the-blue explosion and everything ramps up from there as the challenges and riddles get more difficult. I already mentioned the extreme taxi ride through the park, but we also got the subway crash (which converges two separate paths taken by McClane and Zeus), the car chase in the middle of the rain, and a battle on a boat before the obligatory (and undoubtedly uninspired) helicopter finale. All these set pieces feel very distinct from one another given the escalating stakes as Gruber's intent comes to light, but the most engaging element is how McTiernan completely takes over New York and makes it his playground. All these set pieces I laid out in some way take advantage of the landscape and give McClane the ability to land smack dap in the middle of chaos in the Big Apple. Willis also throws himself into in ways he can't (or just doesn't anymore, beaten and bloody by the end, almost destined to lose any fight he's in. The tension feels real in these moments, making you wonder how he will manage to get himself out of the jam. 

Mostly on his own in the first two movies (sans the help of Al Powell on the ground in the first movie), McClane gets a partner this go around in Zeus Carver, an intelligent, socially conscious man from Harlem who doesn't trust cops or White people. In a passionate exchange that makes the best use of the social dynamics, he says that the only reason he saved McClane during his first “trial” was so that a White cop didn't get killed in a predominately Black neighborhood, which would surely spark even more conflict. But even though there are attempts to dig into social issues they mostly come in the form of one accusing the other of being racist, and that's where it ends. But I digress, the meat lies in the chemistry and how their partnership still feels natural despite their clashing personalities. It makes things funny, awkward and suitably dramatic at times, made all the better by two great actors who have firm grips on the characters. The dynamic is fun, even if it doesn't always go meaningful places, but Sam Jackson makes a more than worthy partner to Willis' McClane, and it's a shame we will probably never see the two together again in this series. 

Michael Kamen composed the scores for the first three DIE HARD movies, and with each one he lent a palpable tone of suspense with his music. As crazy and fast-paced as the movie can be, his music doesn't always take the same path by going for big and bold, but rather gives it a tense undercurrent that can evolve into something that sounds a bit tragic. Take the piece “John and Zeus,” which spends several minutes building and building before hitting the bigger notes, transitioning into “Taxi” as they escape danger, targeting that “what's gonna happen to them??” moment before cooling off. The same can be said for tracks like “Back to Wall Street” and “The Subway,” which emphasize peril and suspense over action. The man really gets DIE HARD on a music level, and I like his work here quite a bit. But he also worked on LETHAL WEAPON 3, and while bringing over that same style his score is buoyed by that sweet, sweet saxophone that can't be beaten. 

Alan Rickman's Hans Gruber ranks as one of the great movie villains, so naturally, it was going to be tough for Jeremy Irons to step into those massive, refined shoes to play his jaded brother, Simon (a less cool name, but that's another matter). Irons is a talented and seasoned enough actor to have understood he couldn't do the same thing as Rickman, so he went another way and leaned into a more tongue-in-cheek approach, relishing his big baddie's swaggering alternative to his brother. He's devious and loves it, getting a kick out of getting one over on McClane, and damn nearing winning it if weren't for that meddling Aspirin bottle. And Irons looks to be having a blast in the role, chewing some scenery, rocking different costumes (including some muscle shirts to show how much he was working out) and jumping between accents depending on who he's trying to fool. He gets a ton of screentime too, which is just a cherry on top considering he could've spent the entire movie on the other end of the phone and it would've been amazing. He's no Hans, but I say Simon is a damn close second. 

Praise:

Rotten Tomatoes: 52% (83% Audience)
IMDb: 7.6
Metacritic: 58 (8.7 Audience)

Money:

$100 million domestic ($366 million global)