#44 — Die Hard With A Vengeance
This is an illustrated countdown of my 49 1/2 most essential action movies. Last week I talked about an Action Cop classic, Righting Wrongs.
With A Vengeance was an early placeholder on the countdown that I just couldn’t part ways with. There are a number of worthy picks I could have went with here, so what is it about this one? The reasons come rushing back as soon as the opening titles hit the screen.
First, we have to thank the original Die Hard for helping forge a solid decade of Action Disaster movies. I love this sub-genre because it puts action heroes in situations normally reserved for comic book superheroes, which I think appropriately contextualizes the impossible things they often do. Some Action Cops know kung fu, some are blessed with infinite ammo, and some were just born to foil acts of terrorism. McClane is Murphy’s Law for bad guys. He is our blessing and their curse. He also inspired a generation of directors and producers to finance and create expensive, bombastic, action romps where criminal masterminds would threaten society with bombs, chemical weapons, and runaway passenger vehicles.
If only there were somebody out there with the courage to stop them! The villain threatens the people in charge, and then the people in charge say something like “get Stone on the line” or “I need Mason Briggs here, ASAP!” or a panicked police chief will say “HAS ANYONE SEEN NORRIS!?” This time, the villain is asking for McClane by name. It seems he has a score to settle. I can’t remember if they actually use the phrase “score to settle” but that particular cliche is the the strawberries and cream to my banana Van Damme-split, the Jalapeño halo drop to my action nacho platter.
This particular score revolves around a series of games that have to be played, or else bombs go off. The movie does a great job of keeping you on your toes that way. In what I think is one of the greatest openers to an action movie ever, the beautiful New York City skyline is disrupted by an alarmingly real explosion of a downtown storefront. The game has begun. The guy making the rules is named Simon, and his demands reunite us with the main player — John McClane.
We know the character pretty well by now, so director John McTiernan (subbing back in for Renny Harlan) makes us wait for his introduction. It builds up to an unceremonious reveal of a man nursing a hangover in the back of police van while he strips down to his boxers, as per the rules of the game — without even understanding why. He gets dumped off in Harlem wearing a sign designed to get you killed in Harlem, and there’s nobody to save him except an electronics store owner named Zeus (Samuel L. Jackson).
These two are just so good together. I could watch a whole spinoff franchise called Zeus & McClane, which sounds like a talking-animal family film starring Steve Guttenberg, but would actually be something closer to Lethal Weapon crossed with Jeopardy. But that’s sort of what this is! I’ll take the one we got.
Another attribute of this movie that I really love is how collaborative the efforts are to stop Simon. Returning to McClane’s home turf is a great move for the character because it removes him from the heroics of Nakatomi Plaza. He’s no longer a maverick outsider getting in shouting matches with the LAPD or airport security. He’s with coworkers and bosses who share a history, and a responsibility to protect the people. They see him for who he really is, and they’re willing to put aside their differences. Characters on the sidelines start coming into focus more. While Zeus & McClane are playing Simon Says, the police are evacuating schools. The jokester bomb expert is willing to lay down his life when things get serious. The schlubby construction worker happens to be a wealth of information that could save the day. The varied location shooting and photography depicts a bustling city filled with good people that will look out for each other.
Suddenly relocating to Canada for the final boss battle is jarring and feels like a betrayal of the spirit of the movie. But everything up to that point is so good that I don’t even mind the absurdity of a wounded Zeus hitching a helicopter ride across the border so he can act as a hype man for his new friend who murders terrorists. If they had stuck the landing, this movie would regularly be in the same sequel debates that callously pit my children Terminator, Terminator 2, Alien, and Aliens against each other. Maybe I should be thankful that I can simply enjoy it as a really great action film and not a sacred cow. I think we take this one for granted. The craft on display, the location, the cast, the directorial confidence of someone with Die Hard and Predator in their resume. It’s all there, sans perfect ending. Optimal viewing during the hottest days of summer, and almost impossible to turn off once you’ve seen the first 10 minutes.
