Die Hard 2: Die Harder

(on KGO TV, Monday August 8)

Perhaps I'm blessed to have seen little of Bruce Willis other than his work in Moonlighting (which I hardly remember now), the Die Hard movies, and his so-so job in Pulp Fiction.  For some reason (his smugness, I suppose, which represents a certain Hollywood quality I flee from) I don't like him whenever I see his face in an ad, especially when he has that fish-mouthed look of intensity as he's led by his gun into another dark corridor of adventure.  But the Die Hard movies make me wonder if I should explore his other films, because Die Hard and Die Hard 2 (I haven't seen the third) are damn good entertainment, and he's a large reason for it.  He really pulls off the average joe who turns out not to be so average; he does it better than say, Will Smith (who tries not to be smug but let's it out in a subtler, more pervasive way).  A lot of what makes him likable are the credible scenarios that he falls into, and the briskness in which they're set up.  Renny Harlin (currently of Deep Blue Sea notoriety) does a great job of keeping the pace tight but the actors loose; everyone feels like they're living in the movie (can't say that for most summer action flicks).  Faces from the first Die Hard reappear to our delight, and, not unlike our favorite TV characters, they react to their situations as you'd expect them to (the TV reporter is the standout in this instance, reporting from his squatted position in the airplane toilet, jeapardizing his life, not to mention those of his co-passengers, for the sake of a scoop). 

Seeing Die Hard 2 after eight years, I was delighted to see how much I remembered, while finding what I'd forgotten to be of great interest (the guy who played T2000 from T2 appears as a terrorist; Dennis Franz is the airport police captain).  On TV, the special effects surprisingly hold up.  Although the John Amos character lost the element of surprise (I remember eight years ago being surprised by the fact that John Amos was still alive), I could admire the acting, the toughness of character, that fooled me the first time.  Although the snowmobile chase is the weakest scene, I don't think I'll ever forget what leads up to it, the icicle scene.  In my dotage, I'll remember that scene far better than those of Bruce Willis trying to keep the first plane from crashing, Bruce Willis ejecting from an exploding plane, Bruce Willis destroying yet another plane with a lighter, or Bruce Willis himself.

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