Die Hard: With a Vengeance

John McTiernan makes Die Hard: With a Vengeance worth the noise and the running about, chiefly by putting two men together who have no patience for each other. We recommend it, with a warning that the last act is appreciably less satisfying than the chase that gets us there. Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson have enough comic friction to keep a sprawling action thriller lively between explosions. McTiernan lets their irritation compete with the danger, and gives both enough attention to keep us interested.

Willis’s John McClane works better with someone prepared to argue back, and Jackson’s Zeus Carver supplies plenty of resistance. Jackson makes his objections feel urgent enough to belong in the action, rather than interruptions inserted to give everyone a rest. We laughed at their bickering even while the reckless cab drive had us tense. The pleasure comes from watching two performers keep an argument alive while the film hurries them towards the next danger.

Peter Menzies Jr.’s cinematography gives the New York action a useful sense of distance: getting across the city looks like work. The cab sequence benefits from that physical scale, because the speed feels reckless and the journey difficult. John Wright’s editing keeps those immediate problems legible even when the larger plot becomes harder to follow. We can stay with the scramble in front of us without having to pretend that every connection in Jonathan Hensleigh’s screenplay is equally convincing.

Jeremy Irons gives Simon enough relish to make him an entertaining source of trouble. His performance is pitched to a film in which the adversary has to compete with two leads who already provide plenty of noise. The emphasis on their partnership does leave him less room to dominate proceedings. Still, he is good company for a villain, and the film would be duller with a more solemn performance.

Jackson De Govia’s production design helps the demolition feel suitably large, though it is less distinctive than the human business in front of it. The spaces serve the pursuit without giving us much reason to study them. Michael Kamen’s music keeps pushing alongside the action, which works while the chases retain their urgency. When the film begins to tire, that insistence becomes another demand on our attention. A little less pressure from the score would let the exhaustion of the situation register more clearly.

Hensleigh’s script is the main limitation: moving to another emergency too often substitutes for making the existing one more interesting. Wright can keep individual sequences brisk, but he cannot make the succession feel necessary. The last act loses momentum just when it ought to be tightening, and its haste does not disguise that loss. An action thriller can survive an implausible connection or two; repeatedly having to renew our interest is a more serious problem.

Most critics disagree with us about how much the partnership compensates for the untidy plotting. The complaints about repetition and sprawl are fair, but we think they understate the pleasure of Jackson giving Willis someone so difficult to get along with. Against the action genre’s usual reliance on bigger destruction, the sustained irritation between these two is a worthwhile reason to keep watching. Choose it for their company, and allow for a finish that cannot quite keep up.