OK so onto part 2 of the Die Hard posts, and this is of course all about Die Hard 2: Die Harder (as it was known at the time), but to be honest it just sounds stupid if you ask me, Die Hard 2 on its own is better really, which it is better known as. So here we go...
The film starts on Christmas Eve 1990, where John
McClane (Bruce Willis) is waiting at Washington Dulles International
airport for his wife's flight to come in. McClane while waiting in the
airport bar notices two men, who appear to be wearing army fatigues and
carry parcels. McClane follows the men to the baggage area, where he
confronts them, and they pull a gun on him, in the enusing gunfight,
McClane kills one of the men, while the other gets away. McClane after
the incident speaks with the police captain Carmine Lorenzo (Dennis
Franz) who dismisses his request to close off the baggage area and
investigate further, as he thinks it was just a punk stealing luggage,
McClane is then escorted out Lorenzo's office. After this McClane
manages to borrow a fingerprint press and lifts prints off the dead
man's hands, and calls up his fellow police officer Al Powell (Reggie
VelJohnson again) and faxes a copy of the man's prints to check out who
he is. Al soon calls McClane back and informs him that the man was a
former army sergeant who apparently died two years ago. McClane then
goes to the chief of the airport tower's operations, Trudeau, with his
findings, but at that point the airport runway lights all start to go
off. It is soon revealed the airport has been taken over by a terrorist
group lead by an ex special forces Colonel, Colonel Stuart (William
Sadler) who wish to use the airport for their own means, so that they
can intercept a plane carrying the drug lord General Ramon Esperanza
(Franco Nero), who has been brought to the US to stand trial for drug
trafficking charges.
With the terrorists now in control
of the airport tower systems, all communications to the planes have
been cut off, which leaves the planes in the air, unable to land, which
includes Holly's plane. And a botched attempt by Lorenzo's SWAT team
and the airport tower's director of communications Barnes (Art Evans) to
re-establish comms with the planes, ends with all the team killed by
Stuart's men in an ambush, but McClane at the last moment steps in saves
Barnes, and shoots Stuart's team. This enrages Colonel Stuart who then
recalibrates the instrument landing system, and pretends to be the
tower chief, and causes one of the planes to crash into the ground,
killing 230 people onboard. McClane realises he must do something to
stop the terrorists and try to ensure that his wife's plane will be able
to land, and Trudeau tells him his wife's plane will soon run out of
fuel. Meanwhile on Holly's plane, she suffers the misfortune of having
to share the same aisle as Dick Thornburg (Richard Atherton), the sleazy
news reporter from the first film, who protests that he is put near
Holly, as he filed a restraining order against her for assaulting him
(at the end of the first film again).
McClane with
Barnes help soon locates the terrorists hideout, which is an old church,
and by then a Special Forces platoon is brought in to help try and
resolve the terrorist situation, lead by Major Grant (John Amos).
Colonel Stuart and his men soon evacuate the church when the Special
forces team arrive, a firefight ensues, and McClane chases after Stuart
on snowmobiles, but Stuart gets away. McClane having taken one of
Stuart's machine guns soon realises that the ammo they used was actually
blanks, and it dawns on him that the Major Grant and his team are
working together with Stuart. McClane goes back to Lorenzo and after
failing to convince him that Grant is in cahoots with Stuart, he fires
the machine gun loaded with blanks at him. Lorenzo then sends out all
his police units to go after Stuart and Grant's men, and McClane catches
up with the pesky news reporter Samantha Coleman (Sheila McCarthy) who
has been bothering everyone throughout the movie, to get a ride in her
news chopper, in order to stop Stuart and Grant's men from leaving on a
plane. McClane soon with help of the ride, jumps on the plane before it
takes off and a final fight ensues with the terrorists.
It
has to be said for me anyway, that Die Hard 2 is the weakest of the
films in the franchise, however that's not to say it isn't enjoyable, it
is, but in comparison to the other films in the series, it falls short
of the mark a little. The problem mainly stems with the script and
characters, particularly the bad guys who are really get the worst
dialogue, and are basically like something out of a comic book. Colonel
Stuart's character in particular makes for a pretty bland villain, who
lacks the charm, wit or humour that Hans Gruber had. And Stuart's
suborindate baddies are all very much the same, and they get some bog
standard dialogue such as "I'm gonna kick your fuckin ass!". There is
also generally too much hackneyed dialogue between the police officers
such as Lorenzo to Major Grant, as Grant says : "Make sure no one get's
past us", Lorenzo says "You got it!". Lorenzo even gets one of the
cheesiest lines of all time, when McClane confronts him toward the end
and they realise what they must do, "Its time to kick ass!". Oh yeah
sure. Again I think the writers of the Die Hard series have a thing for
making the police look like idiots.
Performance wise
things aren't too bad here, but the film suffers again from poorly
realised characters, particularly Colonel Stuart, played William
Sadler. Sadler himself is an excellent actor, as an example he stood
out very well in The Shawshank Redemption, playing a colourful part of a
prison inmate, but here he is just playing a cardboard cut-out villain,
delivering loaded threats without any real sense of menace. Other
supporting cast members however are better, such as Dennis Franz, who
plays he Airport police chief, who is quite amusing in his part, playing
the police chief, as very stubborn and has no interest in listening to
McClane, and is more concerned about the traffic going through his
airport than anything else. John Amos is also fine as Major Grant, the
Special Forces unit leader, and he plays him with an expected sense of
machismo, although he too does get some cringeworthy dialogue,
especially the line where McClane says to him "I guess you're not such
an asshole after all", to which Grant replies "No, you were right, I'm
just your kind of asshole". God.
The regular
cast however do very well in their respective roles, with Bruce Willis,
once again playing John McClane to perfection, or as much to perfection
as he can expect. In Die Hard 2 we get more wise cracking from McClane,
but Bruce also throws in some deft little touches where he shows
McClane's vulnerability. The scene in particular after the terrorists
crash the plane, McClane sadly moves through the wreckage afterwards and
picks up a singed doll, and later sits silently in the airport tower,
lamenting how he failed to help the people on the plane. However now
and then McClane's dialogue is a bit trite as well, especially then line
near the end where he says "My God, John, what the fuck are you doing
on the wing of this plane????". Bonnie Bedelia is certainly not
forgotten about here, and she too provides some of the film's fun
moments, especially where she has to sit and listen to the arrogant
sleazy Dick Thornburg, and she says to him "if you wish to sit this
close to me, could you consider changing aftershave, and a stronger
mouth wash would be nice". Another fun scene Bonnie has with Richard
Atherton is where as Dick Thornburg, broadcasts his propoganda about the
airport takeover by the terrorists from the airplane toilet and says
"If this should be my final broadcast", Bonnie eventually comes into the
toilet and tasers him and says "Amen to that! Dick!".
Action
wise though Die Hard 2, has plenty of fine set-pieces and Renny Harlin
does a good job with the action scenes, and overall he does a pretty
good job at picking up the pace of the franchise where it left off.
Michael Kamen also contributes another fine score to the film, building
on the original score and adding some extra passages, as composers tend
to do in sequels! Track wise, Let it Snow is used once more, but an
additional fine choice is Sebilius's Finlandia, which is used really
well at the end where planes come in to land, once the whole situation
has been "dealt" with.
So there you go, that's the Die
Hard 2 analysis over with, its not a bad action film by any means, but
it has to be said with its bland baddies and hackneyed dialogue, its not
the best in the series by a longshot, but its worth a watch once in a
while.
So let's cue Part 3.....
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