Bad acting, bad writing, a horrid ending, and Hollywood Bait and Switch

Rating: 3/10 (13 October 2003)

There is a nice little idea for a thriller wrapped up in the first thirty-five minutes of the third Die Hard film. Too bad it only lasts that long.
A beautiful, peaceful morning in the Big Apple is suddenly disturbed by a bombing at a department store. Barely do the police have time to gain their bearings when a call comes in from a man called Simon (Jeremy Irons). He wants to play a game of Simon Says with our beloved hero John McClane. Non-compliance will result in a "penalty"--another bomb going off somewhere in the city.
His first stop is Harlem, where must wear a sandwich sign bearing a racist slogan never seen in Harlem. When his life is saved by a man named Zeus (Samuel L. Jackson), Simon says that he too must run all over town solving his deadly puzzles.
"Die Hard With a Vengeance" was promoted with the premise I just described, only it turns out to be the Hollywood equivalent of bait and switch. After a mere three puzzles, the focus shifts to a far inferior plot and deconstructs all the tension that has been built in the movie's first third.
Following the explosion of one of his bombs in a Wall Street subway station, Simon threatens to destroy a school. The bomb will respond if the police use their radios, so the ever intelligent police chief floods all police traffic through 911, and sends out the entire police force to search schools for the bomb. In other words, there could be a full-blown gunfight and the cops would never know about it.
While the police run around like chickens with their heads cut off, Simon, who has about a hundred men at his disposal, begins to rob several billion dollars from a federal bank. This is all detailed in an overlong and uninteresting section played to the tune of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home."
Unfortunately, the use of car sales tactics is not the film's worst problem; it is the characters, most specifically, the character of John McClane. In the first film, he worked for the New York Police Department and was trying to got transferred to the LAPD as soon as he could. In the second film, he was LAPD and any marital problems from the first film appeared to be water under the bridge. Now, he is a once again a New York cop, his wife lives on the opposite coast, and he is one step away from a life steeped in alcoholism. In other words, all the time we spent rooting for John and Holly to overcome their marital problems was wasted. I am of the opinion that if Hollywood studios cannot find a consistent, positive way to treat their characters from one film to the next, then they have no business making a sequel (see "Speed 2").
Samuel L. Jackson is probably one of the best actors in Hollywood right now, but the limitations of the material are evident. It is awfully difficult to care for Zeus because of his heavy racism (do not let his heroic actions in Harlem fool you, he had an ulterior motive). Likable or not, he easily outshines the rest of the cast, especially Willis, who benefits from several one-liners that are funny on paper, but delivered in a way that robs them of all comic appeal. One question: If Zeus is such a smart mathematician, then why is his vocabulary so limited?
Jeremy Irons is well below average as the villain. He starts out in convincing fashion when only his voice is present, though the dark tone he used to voice Scar in "Lion King" is curiously missing. Once we see his face, the character loses all impact. It is shame that Simon was not treated more like Kiefer Sutherland's baddie in "Phone Booth," who, if you remember, was not seen until the end. Of course, this would have meant sticking to the main premise of the film, apparently a task too large for the makers.
Speaking of the end, "Die Hard With a Vengeance" is devoid of excitement for the last half hour. I will not discuss the final scene except to say that it is not usually a good sign when a film forgets about seventy some characters it makes a point of showing on camera. Oh, and I still have not figured out how the trucks got past the border.
Plot holes like this can be overcome with good acting but was there any to speak of? A tiny bit. Aside from Kevin Chamberlin's rarely seen bomb expert, the film's best acting comes from Alan Rickman, the bad guy from the FIRST "Die Hard." He is briefly seen in a flashback.