NYC in the Raw, Issue 4: DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE (1995)
Summertime in NYC. A feeling that elicits a variety of emotions and thoughts into my mind. In my childhood, Summer meant going to the bodega around the corner from my house to buy some quarter waters (essentially 8 ounces of artificially flavored goodness), waiting until late afternoon when the Mister Softee truck would finally roll down by block for me to get a cone with rainbow sprinkles or the cheap green/blue slushies I used to swear by or waiting for one of the local older kids to crack open the fire hydrant that was a few houses down from me so all the kids in the neighborhood could cool off from a long day of playing. For the film nerd that I was, summertime in NYC was also a reason to celebrate, as that was the time all the big blockbuster movies would get released. Sci-fi journeys, bombastic action extravaganzas or high concept adventure films, I was always down for what the studio system was willing to spend $100 million dollars on.
One of my favorites of these types of “summer blockbusters” was John McTiernan’s Die Hard from 1988. This was essentially the prototype for action pics that would follow in the 90s and beyond. The simple plot of terrorists taking over a corporate office building to steal millions in bara bonds but is thwarted at every turn by average man John McClane (Bruce Willis), a police officer from NY who is in the wrong place at the wrong time, would be the blueprint that every action film would try (and mostly fail) to emulate. Every elevator pitch was “Die Hard, but in a BLANK”. Even the sequel, Die Hard 2 – directed by Renny Harlin – is essentially a retread of the original but takes place within an airport. For the next entry that would eventually release in May 1995, the action would shift to the gritty streets of John McClane’s home turf, NYC. While many people have issues with how the character of McClane is currently depicted at the start of the film, returning Die Hard director John McTiernan creates a kinetic and relentless action flick that rivals, for me at least, the original’s impact and craft on any given day. NYC in 1995 is a thing of grimy beauty, and this is perfectly displayed in Die Hard with a Vengeance. Since this movie was shot ON LOCATION here in NYC, I thought it would be cool to treat this article as a tour of the great city, taking us on a tour of all the major locations this movie takes us to while also dropping in plot developments along the way. Without further ado, here we go.
Our adventure starts off with the title card coming in strong followed immediately by the song “Summer in the City” by The Lovin’ Spoonfuls playing over the establishing shots of the city that never sleeps. We get skyline shots of NYC before we descend to the streets of the bustling city. Images of food carts, bodega owners hosing down the sidewalk, the jewelry district and others staples of the city that locals will immediately notice. Before we can fully soak in the vibes, an explosion rips through a department store on an avenue in Midtown Manhattan, sending debris and cars flying into the air during the packed morning rush hour. We cut to a local police precinct, where the man responsible – identifying himself as Simon – calls into the NYPD and has one simple request: he wants John McClane to play a game, otherwise more bombs will go off across the city.
We next move over to the rich historical neighborhood of Harlem, specifically 138th St and Lenox Ave. This sequence of the movie truly sets up NYC as its own fully fleshed out character that is just as important as McClane. You can feel the temperature of the late summer weekday starting to heat up. McClane, looking worse for wear, seemingly now split from his wife Holly and nursing a serious hangover, has been instructed by the bomber to walk along Lenox Ave. wearing a large wooden billboard sign over his chest, displaying an extremely racially charged slur that will surely get him killed within minutes. Enter Zeus (Samuel L. Jackson), a local electronic shop owner who just wants to defuse the situation before anything drastic happens (who also just had to teach his kids a lesson earlier in not carrying around stolen property), especially with the group of 20-somethings hanging out on the stoop a few doors down. When McClane is noticed by those same individuals – he lets Zeus know he is a cop before they reach them on the street – and has a bottle smashed over his head, Zeus is forced to save his life and get him out of situation he has found himself in. Bottles are thrown and glass is shattered in the cab they hop into, but they end up getting away, driving off downtown into the heart of the city.
Our next stop brings us to the subway station at 72nd St and Broadway. Movie buffs may recognize this iconic subway street entrance from 1979’s The Warriors (also an amazing NYC film). Even more evocative imagery is visible in the background as McClane and Zeus approach the pay phone outside the station. The NYC staple Gray’s Papaya is sitting across the street on the corner (and I believe it is still there to this day), a Sleepy’s mattress store resting on the 2nd floor, and the various locally owned businesses strewn the landscape. When Simon gives them 60 seconds to solve a riddle he has proposed to McClane and Zeus, and they seemingly end up calling back with the answer a hair too late, Simon tells them he is going to set off a bomb in the garbage can beside them, sending McClane and Zeus diving into different directions while trying to save whoever they can before it goes off. Alas, Simon is just having some fun at their expense. Nothing happens. All that transpires is some ADR’d chatter from frustrated New Yorkers being mildly annoyed by these two guys causing a ruckus, with one even trying to give Zeus a buck or two to just get up and move along. A classic example of how the residents of Manhattan have seen it all and truly don’t have the time to deal with other people’s problems, even if it could have involved a garbage can bomb going off in their faces.
Simon relays his next stop for his day of games, as he wants them to get to the pay phone at the Wall St. subway station in the Financial District, and to get there in a mere 30 minutes, which is the length of time that the 3 train just pulling into 72nd St station will reach Wall St (which seems fast to me, but I will let them slide on this little city misstep). This part of the movie is arguably the most action packed and intense. McClane and Zeus commandeer another cab (or the same cab from earlier, who knows) and begin to make their way downtown. McClane suggests going through Central Park. Zeus thinks he means Central Park Drive. He actually means THROUGH the park. Countless civilians are put in danger as they plow their way through open park fields before launching over a wall and a few cars on the other side of the park. McClane gets further help after calling in a fake “officer down” call to the local hospital. This allows them to do what any self-respecting NYC driver would do, tailgate the ambulance as far down as possible to avoid traffic. McClane then proceeds to board the same 3 train from above via a street grate while Zeus continues going downtown in the cab. Despite Zeus arriving in time to the Wall St station and McClane locating the bomb on the train and throwing it off the back car onto the tracks, the bomb is triggered as it enters Wall St. and we get the 3 train blown off the tracks, sliding sideways over the platform before concluding its destruction at the foot of the stairs going out on the street, doing one more explosion and flipping over. The shot of debris, dust and people running from the train station, especially in that neighborhood, gave me strong vibes of people running from the towers falling on 9/11 and definitely left an eerie tone to the scene. This is also where we finally learn who is this Simon person really is, and he is none other than the brother of Die Hard’s antagonist Hans Gruber, a discharged German military general named Simon Gruber (played with relish by Jeremy Irons).
Simon’s next devious puzzle sends McClane and Zeus to Tompkins Square Park, which is located on the E 10th St in the East Village. This is the scene of the infamous 5 gallon/3 gallon jug puzzle that has been quite the topic of discussion over the years, more so in how our two heroes somehow arrive at the result seemingly while not showing the intricate number of steps they needed to get to their conclusion. NYC has an array of amazing park grounds, varying in size from the grandiose (Central Park) to the more personal (Washington Square Park). Forest Park was my personal stomping ground, a large sprawling mass of grass and trees located in the eastern part of Queens. This sequence is also where the big twist reveal is unveiled, that Simon is not actually just here to torment McClane but rather to rob the Federal Reserve Bank, tunneling in from the same train station that we had our little explosion earlier. Simon is able to achieve this heinous theft by making the NYPD aware that a bomb has been placed in a public school that will go off at 3pm unless McClane and Zeus continue their journey that Simon has laid out for them.
After solving the riddle in the park, the next clue is an envelope with two tickets to Yankee Stadium and a hint from Simon, “What is 21 out of 42”? While stopping a few kids from robbing some candy at the local bodega across the street from the park, one of the petty thief’s says something that sets off alarms in McClane’s head – “Look around, all the cops are into something….it’s Christmas, you could steal City Hall”. He figures out, knowing how Simon’s brother Hans was a deceptive con man who ended up just being an “exceptional thief”, that Simon must be after something more. When they get back downtown, John concludes they must be there to rob the Federal Reserve. When McClane and Zeus discover that the gold is gone and that multiple dump trucks left the destruction site moments ago (and almost ran them over), they end up giving chase. The thieves end up going through an aqueduct that will bring them upstate to around the Yonkers area, so McClane goes after them through the tunnels while he sends Zeus to Yankee Stadium. Nothing comes of Zeus’ trip to the famous home of the New York Yankees, as the snipers that are set up there aren’t given the go ahead to take him out. In the meantime, McClane gives chase to the terrorists through the tunnel, but it also comes to nothing as they blow up the dam holding back the water from flooding the aqueduct. McClane makes it out in true action hero fashion, riding a dump truck to an open vent and getting blasted out into the woods of upstate, just in time for Zeus to catch his skyrocket ride up out of the tunnel from the road.
As McClane lands with a thud in a large puddle in the middle of a construction site, we find ourselves on the side of the Saw Mill River Parkway, a stretch of road in upstate NY that starts off around Yonkers and runs all the way through the town of Katonah. This is where we are graced with a car chase/shoot-out between McClane/Zeus and a few terrorists trailing them after the aqueduct incident. After some back and forth blows to each car, it ends in a massive car crash for both vehicles, killing the terrorists and only mildly inconveniencing McClane and Zeus. As they finally learn the location of where the terrorists are going – catching a barge ship out of NY – we learn that the school that has the bomb is Chester A. Arthur Middle School (He was the 21st President of the U.S, which was solved by a very informative truck driver McClane met in the aqueduct tunnels). On top of that, in also true movie fashion, we learn that Zeus’ kids from earlier in the movie are students at that very school. As McClane and Zeus enter the barge ship by traversing a tow cable from a bridge before falling onto the ship, we intercut with the NYPD trying their best to defuse the bomb while also trying to get all the kids out without any harm coming to them. After a few gunfights and a one-on-one battle between McClane and 2nd in command tough guy Mathias (Nicholas Wyman, giving off strong Alexander Godunov vibes from OG Die Hard), we get our next big twist. The bomb at the school is not really a bomb, as it is on the very ship McClane and the terrorists are current aboard. Their plan is to blow up the ship with the gold on it as a message to the world. That reveal is short lived as Mathias finds out that the containers on the ship do NOT have the gold, and Simon – who is truly like his brother – wants to keep the gold. Cue massive explosion and McClane/Zeus are blown into the water as they barely jump over beforehand. The terrorists get away and the movie seemingly ends on a downtrodden note. However, a simple aspirin bottle gives McClane the opportunity to end this day right.
As McClane is about to give his estranged wife Holly a call at a pay phone to try and reconcile, he notices that the aspirin bottle that Simon through to him on the ship as he was tied to the bomb (neglected to mention that earlier, but they escape being tied up using a piece of cable embedded in McClane’s shoulder), has the name of a pit stop called Nord Des Lignes, which translates to North of the Border. Thinking that is where Simon and his crew have escaped to before they commence their final exit, McClane and some sort of police force (local Canada PD, NYPD, who knows) surround the terrorists and begin their last stand. To be honest, this is the weakest part of the movie for me. It doesn’t take place in NYC, for one, and it truly feels like an incomplete and very quickly thought up conclusion. There is an alternate ending on some of the physical releases involving McClane catching up to Simon a year down the line, but that is somehow even worse than the theatrical one we ended up getting. I wish it kind of ended at the payphone when John tried to call Holly, but this climax is not a total wash but just simply serviceable. We get some gunfire, some failed escapes by trucks from the terrorists and a helicopter shooting at McClane before he spews his now famous “Yippee ki-yay” line before shooting out a telephone wire that spins into the helicopter blade, sending the chopper, with Simon on baord spiraling and exploding into the night.
Despite a somewhat disappointing final sequence, Die Hard with a Vengeance is an excellent third entry in the McClane saga and a strong case for a movie showcasing NYC as a true character that has depth and grit. While the first Die Hard is probably still my fav of the franchise, there are days where the hardcore NY of it all makes me prefer Die Hard with a Vengeance more than the OG (probably sacrilege to some). You just can’t deny the pure unfiltered NYC of the 90s teeming throughout this action epic, and it makes a great example of a true pure and uncut NYC flick.