Die Hard 3: With A Vengeance (1995)

Die Hard 3: With A Vengeance (1995)

7/10

Starring

Bruce Willis

Samuel L. Jackson

Jeremy Irons

Directed by John McTieman

This movie is exciting, fast and thrilling; it rides hard on the action leaving little room for story depth just straight forward action with unbelievable acting by the leads and the movie did not have any of the other main cast from the first two movies, regardless this movie is just a wonderful action movie that we all should get the thrill of seeing.

This is one wonderful Die Hard addition, as our hero is paired with another great actor Samuel L. Jackson as McClane goes up against a vengeful terrorist, who is here for one reason payback as McClane took down his brother in the first Die Hard movie but payback was just part of the check list also making out with over 140 billion in gold from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was also part of that list.

The movie starts with a big explosion, and unlike the first two McClane was in full control of what was going on, a twist from the previous 2 films and a welcome twist if I can say so myself. The second Die Hard movie (Die Hard 2: Die Harder) ended with McClane and Holly walking off happy, this starts with McClane all washed up from a split from his wife.

The movie plot is about a man who called himself Simon who goes about detonating bombs in New York. Simon now calls the police department and started a game of Simon says, and the pawns were John McClane (Bruce Willis) and Zeus (Samuel L.Jackson). Zeus came onboard the train ride when Simon asked McClane to go to a black neighborhood wearing a sign saying “I Hate Ni**ers”. Zeus saved McClane, and Simon made him and McClane run around New York City trying to stop bombs, till McClane and Zeus got ahead of him and finally took him down with a “Yippee kai yay, motherfu@#er”.

This movie is directed by John McTieman who directed the first movie and the movie is based on the characters created by Roderick Thorp, and Samuel L. Jackson was praised for his role in this movie as he was just wonderful playing Zeus Carver and the villain Simon, played by Jeremy Irons was not as grand as Alan Rickman who played Hans Gruber.

Like Hans Gruber said in the first Die Hard (1988) movie, “John Wayne doesn’t always walk away into the sunset with Grace Kelly (with John McClane correcting him that it was Gary Cooper)”, so is this movie set. As our hero becomes more and more ingenious with how he saves the day, we are given some reality as McClane’s life at home is going down the drain and in the end of this one his wife is not hugging and kissing him all over.

Die Hard with a Vengeance cost 20 million more than the 2^ndmovie in the franchise and it made over a 100 million more than the previous Die Hard 2, making its total box office gross over 360 million (from a 90 million production cost). After this the producers waited over 12 years before they made another Die Hard movie, which was released in 2007 Live Free or Die Hard and a follow up six years later A Good Day to Die Hard (2013).

I love this movie, and Simon says, “Everyone should go see this” because to me this movie was better than the second in the franchise.