Die Hard 2: Die Harder
1988’s Die Hard stands forever as being the one film that set the modern standard for almost all action movies that have come since, a taut, hard edged shoot em out that saw a building full of Eurotrash terrorists (who in reality were just high tech bank robbers) take on a lone, trapped cop in mortal combat with the lives of several hostages hanging in the balance. Much of the beauty of the film itself was in the simplicity of its actual story along with the ferocity of the violence and it’s exceptionally well drawn bevy of supporting characters (as well as the strength of its main villains). In 1990, the much expected and anticipated sequel was made and released, and amazingly while still proving to be a worthy action movie in its own right, also somehow managed to be a trendsetter for the genre as well (though some would say not in a good way) by not only presenting us with a crisply paced, adrenaline fueled thrill ride of its own, but by also giving us nonetheless a woefully unrealistic and far fetched storyline (some would even call it DUMB) that stretches the boundaries of credibililty in more ways than one but yet still manages to keep us on the edge of our seats WHILE ACTUALLY WATCHING IT even when its various plot holes and implausibilities only really come to light during a post viewing contemplation. Bruce Willis returns as the iconic, pissed off cop hero John McClane, first seen getting a parking ticket and then having his car towed while waiting around at Washington D.C.’s Dulles International Airport for the plane that’s carrying his wife (Bonnie Bedelia also returning) to land safely so that they can go spend Christmas with her family. That’s right, this story takes place on Christmas Eve too, and what’s even more ludicrous is the presence of the same arrogant, obnoxious reporter from the first movie (William Atherton ALSO returning) also being on the same flight as Mrs. McClane, which is particularly a problem for him as he actually holds a restraining order against her for punching his lights out in the closing moments of Part 1 (a feat for which the equally fed up flight attendants offer her free champagne for). Turns out that yep, terrorists are again moving in on the location, and instead of being European or even of foreign origin, they are actually an American born and bred group of Green Berets, Special Ops guys, and mercenaries led by Col. Stuart, played by William Sadler (one of the most underrated character actors of this or any other generation) who smartly goes out and does his own thing here instead of just trying to emulate Alan Rickman’s suave, smooth talking leader from Part 1, playing Stuart as a humorless, taciturn leader running what he apparently feels is a tight, covert military operation meant to open people’s eyes as to what he thinks is a grave injustice committed by his own country’s government. And so that means that, yes, unlike the money hungry Hans Gruber and his compadres in the first movie, these guys actually qualify here as being REAL terrorists doing what they are doing for POLITICAL reasons as opposed to financial ones. The objective involves rescuing a recently deposed and indicted South American dictator (Franco Nero) who had specialized in cocaine trafficking and running arms deals with the more, shall we say, right wing elements of our own government by finding a way to take over all radio communications at the snowstorm racked airport hereby leaving all planes (including McClane’s wife’s plane) stranded in midair and low on fuel while seeing to it that everything related to the safe retrieval of the extradicted dictator before they all happily leave for the safety of an unknown destination is carried off without a hitch. And it is in those political motivations alone that makes Sadler and his men (including Robert Patrick and John Leguizamo) particularly detestable and reprehensible, especially considering the lengths that they’re willing to go to in order to shepherd this “great man” to safety, most notoriously when Sadler (on Christmas Eve mind you) deliberately crashes a plane into the ground and knowingly murders 200 passengers and crew just to show everyone that he means business in a nightmarish sequence that for some people is so horrific to actually watch that it makes the viewer really hate Sadler’s character and his upright military prick routine not to mention that it can almost be construed as being something that would give even Hans Gruber himself some serious pause. McClane gets in on the fun by first spotting some suspicious activity from two of Sadler’s men in the airport before following and killing one of them in a shootout. A fax of the dead man’s fingerprints that is sent out to LA briefly brings in Reginald Veljohnson’s Sgt. Al Powell for a cameo (and successfully reminding us of his winning chemistry with Willis in the first film), and upon seeing the corpse’s personal history as a CIA merc (who had already faked his own death once), McClane realizes that something very big is about to go down. This brings us to one of the major departures from the first film, as McClane is shown throughout the movie actually interacting and working directly with the authorities and airport personnel who are dealing with the crisis on the ground. These include the head engineer (Art Evans), the chief of security at the airport (Dennis Franz, playing the reactionary asshole part to a tee but at least reminding us of the enormous stress that he’s under at his job because he’s in charge of running airport security during the notoriously busy Christmas season), and surprisingly most of all, the calm, level headed head of operations at the airport played by future Presidential candidate Fred Thompson, nicely breaking out here by not only being the best supporting character in the film but even managing to bring some empathy to what would normally have been written off as being a completely nothing part. It can be said though, that this film doesn’t quite work as well as the original did when it comes to sketching in likable, quirky little supporting characters, as most obviously seen when it comes to the crazy, nattering airport janitor (Tom Bower) or the idiot local news reporter (Sheila McCarthy) who spends the whole movie constantly trying to get her “big story”. Likewise with the commando leader (John Amos) who is brought in to deal with Sadler and his men as he maintains a sort of forced love / hate relationship with McClane. But the pacing still does manage to compensate for a lot of these issues, and McClane’s tendency to just go off from the others and come up with his own solutions (including a VERY interesting possible breach of ethics on his own part when he attempts to hold the newly arrived dictator hostage so that he can attempt a straight up exchange with Sadler in return for his wife’s plane being the only one to land safely) keeps things flowing nicely and with the exception of an insane bit where he uses a plane’s ejector seat to escape certain death, the action and stuntwork are kept just believable enough that we never do see McClane turn ridiculously superhuman (as he did in the later films) in order to carry out his heroics. There’s also some nice levity in the bantering scenes on board Bedelia’s plane between herself and Atherton (as we start to question if perhaps Atherton’s dislike / fear of Bedelia is based on a possible attraction or longing for her and if his own foolish actions here might even have been a halfhearted attempt to impress her) not to mention several ironic references to the first film as well as several self aware comments from McClane himself as it relates to the wild improbability of finding himself once again facing this kind of a threat on Christmas Eve. And as we head into the climax here, we find ourselves marveling at how director Renny Harlin (getting his big break here as he was working on both this and The Adventures Of Ford Fairlane at the very same time and admirably making fine movies out of both of them despite the VERY tight production schedule that they had) managed to so successfully change certain things up from the original film yet still stick to the given formula all the way right up to the final battle, this time having McClane battle it out with an ultra right wing military man instead of a narcissistic, apolitical mastermind so that the right winger can save his political hero even as he mistakenly accepts “victory” by arrogantly kicking McClane to the ground off of a moving plane instead of just putting a bullet in him to finish him off. In the end, a quality, worthy sequel with some definite minor flaws to it but in no way does it ever jump the proverbial shark…
9/10