Movie Review: 'Die Hard 2: Die Harder'

Die Hard 2 (1990)

aka Die Hard 2: Die Harder

Directed by Renny Harlin

Written by Steven E. de Souza and Doug Richardson

Based on the novel 58 Minutes by Walter Wager

Starring: Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, William Sadler, John Amos, Dennis Franz, Fred Dalton Thompson, Franco Nero

Rent-A-Car Girl: I close in about an hour. Maybe we can go get a drink?

John McClane: [shows his wedding ring] Just the fax, ma'am. Just the fax.

Finnish director Renny Harlin's Die Hard 2: Die Harder is a decent but derivative sequel to 1988's megahit Die Hard. This time around, John McClane (Bruce Willis), now a Los Angeles Police  Department lieutenant must match wits, fists, gunfire, and banter with a band of heavily armed bad guys that have taken over Washington, D.C.'s Dulles International Airport.

Based on Walter Wager's novel 58 Minutes, Steven E. de Souza and Doug Richardson's script closely follows the format of John McTiernan's Die Hard.  Once again, it's Christmas Eve. Two years have passed since the events in Los Angeles' Nakatomi Plaza. Former NYPD Officer McClane has reconciled with his wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) and has transferred to the LA police department.

As Die Hard 2 opens, McClane's trip to Dulles International Airport to wait for Holly's inbound flight to land at has gone sour. The car he borrowed from his in-laws is being towed away because it was parked in a No Parking zone, and Holly's plane is due to land in less than an hour. McClane asks Sgt. Vito Lorenzo (Robert Constanzo) to give him a break, but to no avail.

As McClane deals with this seemingly minor crisis, a team of heavily armed men led by Col. Stuart (William Sadler) is preparing to take control of the airport. A Special Forces veteran with close ties to Latin American dictator Ramon Esperanza (Franco Nero), Stuart ruthlessly secures a recently closed church near the airport and sets up his own flight control center.

John McClane: Excuse me, officers. This may sound like a wild goose chase, but, I think I just saw...

Sgt. Vito Lorenzo: Saw what?

John McClane: Elvis. Elvis Presley

As a still-vexed McClane sits in the airport bar, he spies two men clad wearing military-style clothing and carrying a suspicious-looking package. His cop's instincts now fully on alert, McClane notices that one of the men has a weapon. When the duo leaves the bar and heads to the baggage area, a wary McClane follows.

In the ensuing gun battle, McClane kills one of the men, but the other one gets away. Resourceful as ever, the veteran detective faxes the dead man's fingerprints to Sgt. Al Powell (Reginald VelJohnson). The result: the corpse is that of a former soldier reported to have died in action two years earlier.

John McClane: That punk pulled a Glock 7 on me. You know what that is? It's a porcelain gun made in Germany. Dosen't show up on your airport X-ray machines, here, and it cost more than you make in a month.

Carmine Lorenzo: You'd be a surprised what I make in a month.

John McClane: If it's more than a dollar ninety-eight I'd be very surprised.

Convinced that there's more here than meets the eye, McClane tries to warn airport police Capt. Carmine Lorenzo (Dennis Franz) that something really bad is about to happen in Dulles.

Capt. Lorenzo refuses to listen and orders McClane to be escorted out of his office.

McClane's theory is proven correct when Col. Stuart takes remote control of Dulles International's air traffic control system. Stuart's ultimate goal: to force the U.S. government to release the recently arrested Gen. Esperanza, who is currently en route to Washington aboard a military transport aircraft. If Stuart's demands are not met, severe consequences will follow.

Of course, those serious consequences mean that Holly's life, as well as those of several thousand innocent persons, hang on the balance. Now their only hope resides in what John McClane does next.

My Take

John McClane: Oh man, I can't f---ing believe this. Another basement, another elevator. How can the same s--t happen to the same guy twice?

Die Hard 2, like Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones movies, is an exciting, highly-entertaining action-adventure flick. It's  fast-paced, full of high-octane energy, andloaded with spectacular can't-believe-what-we're-seeing action sequences that work well even if they defy all logic.

Working from a script by Die Hard scribe Steven de Souza and Doug Richardson, director Renny Harlin doesn't pretend to appeal to the viewer's intellect. Though Die Hard 2's screenplay is smartly written, Harlin wants visceral reactions, not deeply analytical ones.

In Die Hard 2, McClane is put through a series of ordeals that are the 20th Century equals to the 12 Labors of Hercules. Throughout the 131-minute long movie, our hero engages in hand-to-hand combat with well-trained rogue soldiers, dodges machine gun and small-arms fire, chases bad guys on a snowmobile, and fights Col. Stuart on the wing of a moving 747. It's stuff straight out of the James Bond playbook, complete with plot twists that we know are implausible but we love watching anyway.

The main reason for Die Hard 2's success is, of course, Bruce Willis' return to the star-making role of John McClane. His athletic build and his not-too-handsome features combine to give McClane a certain amount of credibility mixed with an Everyman quality that many viewers can relate to.

Of course, Willis gives Die Hard fans what they expect: a resourceful, dogged hero who confronts his adversaries with an often-profane quip or two in his lips, a gun in his hands, and his trademark smirk.

Willis has used these traits to other movies like a crutch, and not always successfully because they make his other characters seem smarmy and untrustworthy. Nevertheless, they serve him well in the Die Hard franchise, especially in the first three films.

Perhaps McClane resonates with the audience because his motivation in the first two films is so personal. Here, as in John McTiernan's Die Hard, the main driving force for McClane's heroics is not his professional obligation as a law enforcement officer. Instead, he takes on Col. Stuart and his rogue troops to save Holly's life. The fact that he will save thousands of lives as a result of his efforts seems incidental.

As McClane's adversary, William Sadler is the antithesis of Alan Rickman's Hans Gruber from the first Die Hard. Where Hans was the epitome of sartorial elegance and refined manners, Col. Stuart is an example of All-American physicality. Sadler's chiseled, clean-shaven looks give his character a chilly menace that contrasts nicely with Gruber's studied air of European civility.

Willis and Sadler are supported by a large ensemble cast which includes three returnees from Die Hard (Bonnie Bedelia, Reginald VelJohnson, and William Atherton), plus John Amos (Good Times), Dennis Franz (NYPD Blue), Fred Dalton Thompson (who later won a U.S. Senate seat representing the state of Tennessee), Robert Patrick (Terminator 2), and John Leguizamo (Executive Decision).

Col. Stuart: Looking good, Windsor. Now watch it - 30 knot crosswinds and the runway is icy. Attaboy, we've got ya. We've got ya...

[McClane waves his torches more aggressively as the plane flies over his head]

John McClane: Pull up!

[the pilots come out of the fog and suddenly see the runway right underneath them]

Pilot (Windsor Flight 114), Co-Pilot (Windsor Flight 114): Jesus!

[the plane hits the ground with a slight bank to the right, causing the landing gear to collapse. As the belly of the plane skids down the runway, sparks ignite the ruptured fuel tanks, which explode. McClane dives to the ground. The pilots' screams are audible on Stuart's systems]

Col. Stuart: We've got ya.

 The only issue I have with Die Hard 2 is the film's choice to depict a terrorist plot against an airport and passenger jets in flight.  When the movie was released in July 1990,I did not have a problem. I thought it was a legitimate plot point, even though it is highly unlikely that all those planes orbiting helplessly over Dulles could not have been diverted to other airports on the East Coast in real life.    

Now, nearly 16 years after 9/11, I doubt that 20th Century Fox would give de Souza and Richardson's screenplay the go-ahead without serious contemplation about how 21st Century audiences might react.

Other than that, Die Hard 2 is a solidly entertaining action picture. It is competently produced and has spectacular visuals that more than compensate for the script's many implausibilities. It's contrived, formulaic, and portrays deliberately larger-than-life characters, but it's also fun to watch. 

Blu-ray Specifications

 Video

• Codec: MPEG-4 AVC (28.37 Mbps)
• Resolution: 1080p
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1

Audio

• English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
• English: Dolby Digital 2.0 (224 kbps)
• French: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
• Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)

Subtitles

• English, English SDH, Spanish, Cantonese, Korean

Discs

• 50GB Blu-ray Disc
• Single disc (1 BD)
• D-Box

Playback

• Region A

 

DVD Special Edition Features:

DVD Specifications and Special Features

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment has released several versions of Die Hard 2 on DVD and Blu-ray. The data below applies to the 2001 two-DVD Special Edition set.

·        Rated: R (Restricted)

·        Studio: Twentieth Century Fox Home Video

·        DVD Release Date: July 10, 2001

·        Run Time: 131 minutes

DVD Features:

·        Available Subtitles: English, Spanish

·        Available Audio Tracks: English (DTS), English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)

·        Commentary by director Renny Harlin

·         

·        "Die Harder: The Making of Die Hard 2" (23 min; created for FOX affiliate networks)

·         

·        Making-of featurette (4 min.; created for FOX publicity's electronic press kit)

·         

·        Trailers and TV spots

·         

·        Deleted scenes: Merry Christmas, Down the Rabbit Hole, Marvin, The Boiler Room

·         

·        Interview with Renny Harlin

·         

·        Villain's profile

·         

·        Behind-the-scenes and storyboards

·         

·        Visual effects: ejector seat, airport runway, side-by-side comparisons of chopper, airplane models, and wing fight

·         

·        THX Optimode tests

·         

·        Number of discs: 2