This Modern Day Cowboy is Getting Old.

Rating: 8/10 (10 September 2009)

DIE HARD: WITH A VENGEANCE is the third installment in the Die Hard series and finds our beloved cop hero, John McClane, at home in New York City. The brother of the lead terrorist that McClane got rid of in the first film, seems to have a personal vendetta to settle with McClane. Simon (Jeremy Irons) has McClane perform all sorts of life-endangering stunts for his amusement. One stunt involves McClane wearing a very racist sign stark naked in Harlem. He is saved there by a local store owner, Zeus (Samuel L. Jackson) who because of his Good Samaritan deed, inadvertedly becomes a part of the plot. Actually, Simon is just using his hatred of McClane as a cover for his real plot, to steal the Federal Reserve in NYC. Whereas the original DIE HARD was a guy's romance (lots of action all to save the girl), DIE HARD: WITH A VENGEANCE is a buddy movie. The pairing of Willis and Jackson is genius and the comraderie and verbal wit between the duo is pure delight. The movie has a great deal of action but doesn't have as tight script as the original DIE HARD. It tries to make up for that with bigger explosions and action scenes. Of course sometimes bigger isn't always better. Some of the early scenes were so realistic that this movie was postponed for a few months because of the Oklahoma City bombing. After 9-11, some may find some of the scenes to be uncomforting, unsettling, and hitting too close to home. But keep in mind, this movie was made when Hollywood kept feeding us the myth--that we all wanted to believe-- that terrorism could never happen to us. Other than the scenes that some may find unsettling and a loose script, the other drawback of the film is that McClane is separated from his beloved wife Holly, which just doesn't fit the DIE HARD formula. The first two films were guy romances which made them enduring. This picture has taken that romantic element out and attempted to replace it with the buddy angle. It works, but it isn't as enduring. Whereas in the first two movies, McClane was saving the world to save his wife, in this movie he's saving the world to save his life.