Stream of Consciousness Movie Review
There was the Lone Ranger and his native american pal Tonto now there's Bruce with his african american cronies in tow in all three of the Die Hard films. In the first one (you know, the one without the subtitle like "Die Harder" or "With A Vengance") he had Reginald Vel Johnson, then Art Evans, and now Samuel L. Jackson. What am I trying to get at? Nothing really, it's just a thesis statement for an article that will probably show up in "Film Comment" with so many five dollar words that not even Christian Metz could grasp their meaning.
No, if I were to go on about anything it would be the trend in "threquels" to undo what the other films have tried so hard to do. I could fill a book about how much I hate ALIEN 3 but the biggest chapter would be my complaint that we spent all of ALIENS having Ripley trying to save Newt but then Newt is dead before the credits are even over in the third film. In the first DIE HARD we spend a lot of time trying to get Holly and John McClain back together and while there is no mention of any troubles in DIE HARDER, they are separated in WITH A VENGEANCE -so separate that Bonny Bedelia is not even in the cast.
It bugged the hell out of my friend Andrew that DIE HARDER had to take place at Christmas just because the first one did but now I'm mad that WITH A VENGEANCE wasn't set at Christmas since the other two were. Maybe Hollywood realized that, not only would it be silly but, Summer returns are far more profitable than Christmas releases.
I'm glad that even though WITH A VENGEANCE was based on a screenplay and not a novel that it didn't feel like the last two Dirty Harry films—we've got a script about a cop here where we can just change the name to Harry Callahan and voila! However, I do think that VENGEANCE could really have done with a rewrite or two to give Graham Greene and Jeremy Irons something to work with.
I kept thinking that Greene's character would be in league with the bad guys since he certainly didn't fit in with the cops. He was totally wooden (oops!) and it felt like there wouldn't have had a need for his character at all except that somebody finagled Greene to be in the film.
Irons was a real trooper. He had absolutely nothing to work with and a phantom stutter that again insulted people with speech impediments (like Shakes the Clown) and never integrated itself with the rest of the plot. I was expecting a Taking of Pelham One Two Three twist with that angle. It's not like the film didn't come to a screeching halt every time we were handed plot points (the badge number, the stolen trucks, et cetera).
I still think it would have been cool to see David Thewlis as Simon Gruber (as was talked of early in pre-production—back when it was supposed to be set on a ship). The vengeance idea is the only thing that I have yet to judge. I really like that the first one was all an elaborate heist but I don't know if it works in this one that revenge might be just a McGuffin. If it wasn't for the names and the idea of revenge it would be reverted back to what it originally was; an action adventure movie. This brings us to the question of would this have stood on its own without the words Die & Hard in the title? And would The Last Boy Scout have been better received if it had been rewritten to make Bruce Willis' character's name John McClane? (he already had the black sidekick of Damon Wayans).
What I have thus far neglected to say is that DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE is a really fun watch and I would recommend it to all of my friends. It has an excellent sound mix and is best seen in a theater with digital sound - a rowdy crowd is a nice bonus too.
I'm always curious about big time critics: do they see movies with other critics or with the Great Unwashed? I think that that makes a big difference with a lot of films. Is that why Roger Ebert still insists that BLUE VELVET sucks? Did he not know where it was okay to laugh?
I can't say that DIWAV is simply an enjoyable "turn off your brain and enjoy" movie (see below) but it was a ton of fun.