Jaws Binge: Jaws (1975)

A modern film classic, Jaws (1975) derives much of its terror from a directorial approach that might be termed "information overload." 

Although the great white shark remains hidden beneath the waves for most of the film -- unseen but imagined -- director Steven Spielberg fills in that visual gap and the viewer's imagination with a plethora of facts and figures about this ancient, deadly predator.

Legendarily, the life-size mechanical model of the shark (named Bruce) malfunctioned repeatedly during production of the film, a reality which forced Spielberg to hide the creature from the camera for much of the time. Yet this problem actually worked out in the film's best interest. Because for much of the first two acts, unrelenting tension builds as a stream of data about this real-life "monster" washes over us. 

In short, it's the education of Martin Brody, and the education of Jaws' audience.

After a close-up shot of a typewriter clacking out the words "SHARK ATTACK (all caps), images, illustrations and descriptions of the shark start to hurtle across the screen in ever increasing numbers. Chief Brody reads from a book that shows a mythological-style rendering of a shark as a boat-destroying, ferocious sea monster.

Another schematic in the same scene reveals a graph of shark "radar," the fashion by which the shark senses a "distressed" fish (the prey...) far away in the water.

Additional photos in the book -- and shown full-screen by Spielberg -- depict the damage a shark can inflict: victims of shark bites both living and dead. These are not photos made up for the film, incidentally, but authentic photographs of real-life shark attack victims.

Why, there's even a "gallows" humor drawing of a shark (with a human inside its giant maw...) drawn by Quint at one point, a "cartoon" version of the audience's learning.

Taken together, these various images cover all aspects of shark-dom: from reputation and lore to ability; from a shark's impact on soft human flesh, to the macabre and ghastly.

This information overload about sharks also comes to Brody (the audience surrogate) in other ways, through both complementary pieces of his heroic triumvirate, Hooper and Quint, respectively. 

The young, enthusiastic, secular Hooper first becomes conveyor of data in his capacity as a scientist.

Hooper arrives in Amity and promptly performs an autopsy on shark attack victim Chrissie Watkins. He records the examination aloud into a tape recorder mic (while Brody listens). Hooper's vocal survey of the extensive wounds on the corpse permits the audience to learn precisely what occurred when this girl was attacked and partially devoured by a great white shark. 

Hooper speaks in clinical, scientific terms of something utterly grotesque: "The torso has been severed in mid-thorax; there are no major organs remaining...right arm has been severed above the elbow with massive tissue loss in the upper musculature... partially denuded bone remaining..."

As Brody's science teacher of sorts, Hooper later leads the chief through a disgusting (and wet...) dissection of a dead tiger shark (one captured and believed to be the Amity offender). Again, Hooper educates not just Brody; he educates the audience about a shark's eating habits and patterns. All these facts -- like those presented by illustrations in the books -- register powerfully with the viewer and we begin to understand what kind of "monster" these men face.

Later, aboard the Orca, Quint completes Brody's learning curve about sharks with the final piece of the equation: first-hand experience. 

Quint recounts, in a captivating sequence, how he served aboard the U.S.S. Indianapolis in 1945. How the ship was sunk after delivering the Hiroshima bomb, and how 1100 American sailors found themselves in shark-infested water for days on end.

Over a thousand sailors went into the water and only approximately three-hundred came out.

As Quint relates: "the idea was: shark comes to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And, you know, the thing about a shark... he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be living... until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all the poundin' and the hollerin', they all come in and they... rip you to pieces."

This testimony about an eyewitness account is not the only "history" lesson for Brody, either. Brief reference is also made in the film to the real-life "Jersey man-eater" incident of July 1 - July 12, 1916, in which four summer swimmers were attacked by a shark on the New Jersey coast.

This "information overload" concerning sharks -- from mythology and scientific facts to history and nightmarish first-person testimony -- builds up the threat of the film's villain to an extreme level, while the actual beast remains silent, unseen. When the shark does wage its final attack, the audience has been rigorously prepared, and it feels frightened almost reflexively. 

Spielberg's greatest asset here is that he has created, from scratch, an educated audience; one that fully appreciates the threat of the great white shark. And a smart audience is a prepared audience. And a prepared audience is a worried one. We also become invested in Brody as our lead because we learn, alongside him, all these things. When he beats the shark, we feel as if we've been a part of the victory.

Another clever bit here: after all the "education" and "knowledge" and "information," Spielberg harks back to the mythological aspect of sea monsters, hinting that this is no ordinary shark, but a real survivor -- a monster -- and possibly even supernatural in nature (like Michael Myers from Halloween).

Consider that this sea dragon arrives in Amity (and comes for Quint?) thirty years to the day of the Indianapolis incident (which occurred June 30, 1945). Given this anniversary, one must consider the idea that the shark could be more than mere animal. 

It could, in fact, be some kind of supernatural angel of death.

Thematically, the shark could also serve as a Freudian symptom of guilt repressed in the American psyche. The shark attack on Indianapolis occurred thirty years earlier, at the end of World War II, when a devastating weapon was deployed by the United states.

Now, in 1975, this shark arrives on the home front just scant months after the fall of Saigon in the Vietnam War (April 30, 1975) -- think of the images of American helicopters dropped off aircraft carriers into the sea. 

This shark nearly kills a young man, Hooper, who would have likely been the same age as Quint when he served in the navy during World War II.

Does the shark represent some form of natural blow-back against American foreign policy overseas? I would say that this idea is over-reach, a far-fetched notion, if not for the fact that the shark's assault on the white-picket fences of Amity strikes us right where it hurts: in the wallet; devastating the economy. 

It isn't just a few people who are made to suffer, but everyone in the community. And that leads us directly to an understanding of the context behind Jaws.

It Was Only Local Jurisdiction

President Nixon resigned from the White House on August 9, 1974...scarcely a year before the release of Jaws.

He did so because he faced Impeachment and removal from office in the Watergate scandal, a benign-sounding umbrella for a plethora of crimes that included breaking-and-entering, political espionage, illegal wire-tapping, and money laundering.

It was clear to the American people, who had watched the Watergate hearings and investigations on television for years, that Nixon and his lackeys had broken the law, to the detriment of the public covenant. It was a breach of the sacred trust, and a collapse of one pillar of American nationalism: faith in government.

In the small town of Amity in Jaws, the Watergate scandal is played out in microcosm. 

Chief Brody conspires with the town medical examiner, at the behest of Larry Vaughn, the mayor, to "hide" the truth about the shark attack that claimed the life of young Chrissie. 

Another child dies because of this lie. 

We are thus treated to scenes of Brody and the town officials hounded by the press (represented by Peter Benchley...), much as Nixon felt hounded by Woodward and Bernstein and the rest. 

We thus see a scene set at a town council meeting which plays like a congressional Watergate hearing writ small, with a row of politicians ensconced for a long time before an angry crowd. The man in charge bangs the gavel helplessly.

These were images that had immediate and powerful resonance at the time of Jaws. If you combine the "keep the beaches open" conspiracy with the Indianapolis story (a story, essentially, of an impotent, abandoned military) what you get in Jaws is a story about America's 1970s "crisis of confidence," to adopt a phrase from ex-president Jimmy Carter.

Following Watergate, following Vietnam, there was no faith in elected leaders, and Jaws mirrors that reality with an unforgiving depiction of craven politicians and bureaucrats. 

The cure is also provided, however: the heroism of the individual; the old legend of the cowboy who rides into town and seeks justice.

Brody is clearly that figure here: an outsider in the corrupt town of Amity (he's from the NYPD); and the man who rides out onto the sea to face Amity's enemy head on, despite his own fear of the sea and "drowning." 

Yes Brody was involved in the cover-up, but Americans don't like their heroes too neat. Brody must have a little blood on his hands so that his story of heroism is also one of redemption.

Why is Jaws so enduring and appealing? 

Simple answer: it's positively archetypal in its presentation of both the monster -- a sea-going dragon ascribed supernatural power -- and it's hero: an every-man who challenges city hall and saves the townsfolk. 

This hero is ably supported by energetic youth and up-to-date science (Hooper), and also wisdom and experience in the form of the veteran Quint. 
.

You're Gonna Need A Bigger Boat
You can't truly engage in an adequate discussion of Jaws without some mention of film technique. The film's first scene exemplifies Spielberg's intelligent, visual approach to the thrilling material.

This introduction to the world of Jaws -- which features a teenager going out for a swim in the ocean and getting the surprise of her life -- proves pitch perfect both in orchestration and effect. Hyperbole aside, can you immediately think of a better (or more famous) horror movie prologue than the one featured here?

The film begins under the sea as Spielberg's camera adopts the P.O.V. of the shark itself. We cling to the bottom of the ocean, just skirting it as we move inland. 

Then, we cut to the beach, and a long, lackadaisical establishing pan across a typical teenage party. Young people are smoking weed, drinking, canoodling...doing what young people do on summer nights, and Spielberg's choice of shot captures that vibe.

When one of the group -- the blond-haired seventies goddess named Chrissie -- gets up to leave the bunch, Spielberg cuts abruptly to a high angle (from a few feet away); a view that we understand signifies doom and danger, and which serves to distance us just a little from the individuals on-screen.

With a horny (but drunk...) companion in tow, Chrissie rapidly disrobes for a night-time dip in the sea, and Spielberg cuts to an angle far below her, from the bottom of the ocean looking up. We see Chrissie's beautiful nude form cutting the surface above, and the first thing you might think of is another monster movie, Jack Arnold's Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954). 

Remember how the creature there spied lovely Julie Adams in the water...even stopping to dance with her (without her knowledge) in the murky lagoon?

Well, that was an image, perhaps, out of a more romantic age. 

In this case, the swimmer is nude, not garbed, and contact with the monster is quick and fatal, not the beginning of any sort of "relationship." 

In a horrifying close-shot, we see Chrissie break the surface, as something unseen but immensely powerful tugs at her from below. Once. Then again. After an instant, you realize the shark is actually eating her...ripping through her legs and torso. She begs God for help, but as you might expect in the secular 1970s there is no help for her.

The extremely unnerving aspect of Spielberg's execution is that recognition of the shark's attack dawns on the audience as the same time it dawns on Chrissie. She doesn't even realize a leg is gone at first. It's horrifying, but -- in the best tradition of the genre -- this scene is also oddly beautiful. 

The gorgeous sea; the lovely human form. The night-time lighting.

Everything about this moment should be romantic and wonderful, but isn't. 

Again, you can detect how Spielberg is taking the malaise days mood of the nation to generate his aura of terror; his overturning of the traditional order. Just as our belief in ourselves as a "good" and powerful nation was overturned by Vietnam and Watergate.

The more puritanical or conservative among us will also recognize this inaugural scene of Jaws as being an early corollary of the "vice precedes slice and dice" dynamic of many a slasher or Friday the 13th film. A young couple, eager to have pre-marital sex (after smoking weed, no less...) faces a surprise "monster" in a foreign realm. 

That happens here not in the woods of Crystal Lake, but in a sea of secrets and monsters. It's also no coincidence, I believe, that the first victim in the film is a gorgeous, athletic blond with a perfect figure. Chrissie is the American Ideal of Beauty...torn asunder and devoured before the movie proper has even begun.

If that image doesn't unsettle you, nothing will.

I wrote in my book, Horror Films of the 1970s (McFarland; 2002), that, ultimately the characteristics that make a film great go far beyond any rudimentary combination of acting, photography, editing and music. It's a magic equation that some films get right and some don't. Jaws is a classic, I believe, because it educates the viewer about the central diabolical threat and then surprises the viewer by going a step further and hinting that the great white shark is no mere animal, but actually an ancient, malevolent force. 

The film also brilliantly reflects the issues of the age in which it was created. And finally, Jaws updates the archetypes of good and evil that generations of Americans have grown up recounting, even though it does so with a distinctly disco decade twist. The Hooper-Brody-Quint troika is iconic too, and I love the male-bonding aspects of the film, with "modern" men like Brody and Hooper learning, eventually, to fall in love, after a fashion, with the impolitic Quint...warts and all.

Finally, you should never underestimate that Jaws depends on imagination and mystery. 

It is set on the sea, a murky realm of the unknown where the shark boasts the home field advantage. Meanwhile, man is awkward and endangered there. We can't see the shark...but he can see us. With those black, devil eyes. 

When you suddenly realize that the only thing standing between Brody and those black eyes is a thin layer of wood (the Orca); when you think about all the information we've been given about great whites and their deadly qualities, you'll agree reflexively -- instinctively -- with the good chief's prognosis.

We're gonna need a bigger boat.

Saturday Morning Flashback: Schoolhouse Rock (1973 - 1986)

Today, I credit three diverse and valuable sources with my ability to write well.

The first is my study of Latin. I minored in the subject at the University of Richmond and have never regretted it. Vēnī, vīdī, vīcī.

The second source is a deep stable of wonderful and inspiring English professors; stretching from my grade school experience through the university years.

And, last but never least, is...Schoolhouse Rock, the ABC animated musical series (1973-1986) that demonstrated -- in superbly entertaining fashion -- how to accurately utilize conjunctions ("Conjunction Junction"), adverbs ("Lolly, Lolly, Lolly Get Your Adverbs Here,") interjections ("Interjections!") and more. Yep, these "lessons" were all facets of the series' memorable class on "Grammar Rock."

Schoolhouse Rock premiered on the ABC Network in early January of 1973, the brainchild of ad man David McCall, musician Bob Dorough and artist Tom Yohe. 

Network executive Michael Eisner approved the project for broadcast during ABC's Saturday morning schedule, and accordingly three minutes "bits" were cut (over producer protests!) from the entertainment programming (such as Scooby Doo) to make "elbow room" for these educational and amusing shorts.

The series' mission: "to link math [and other subjects] with contemporary music...[so] kids will breeze through school on a song."

Over roughly a dozen years, Schoolhouse Rock accomplished that task in spades. It offered a deep, amusing, highly-addictive and toe-tapping TV curriculum in a variety of academic subjects.

Celebrating the bicentennial in 1976, Schoolhouse Rock's "America Rock" featured such shorts as "I'm Just a Bill," (following a bill's progress from idea to committee to law or veto...), "Elbow Room" (about the American expansion West after the Louisiana Purchase..."), "Mother Necessity" (about American ingenuity and inventions...), and "The Preamble," which concerned the specific words and meanings of the U.S. Constitution.
 

In the subject of math, audiences were offered "Multiplication Rock," with shorts called "My Hero, Zero," "Three is a Magic Number" (a personal favorite that I used to sing to my son, Joel, when he was a baby) and "Figure Eight."

In "Science Rock," youngsters learned about "Electricity, "Electricity" and "Interplanet Janet" (a ditty about the heavenly bodies of our solar system.)

For Generation X (my generation) specifically, these shorts (particularly the catchy tunes) are nothing less than indelible. 

McClane Blog: A Good Day to Die Hard (2013)

The final Die Hard movie -- so far anyway -- proved a giant hit at the box office, and yet drew the worst reviews of the franchise.  A Good Day to Die Hard (2013) also returns Bruce Willis to his most famous role, cop John McClane, and sends him, for the first time, out of the United States, for one of his demolition derbies.

The fish-out-of-water aspect of the series is left intact, then, as John goes to Moscow to save his grown son, Jack (Jai Courtney), a spy, from danger. The “buddy” element of the franchise, which shows up in Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), and Live Free or Die Hard (2007) is thus satisfied,, too with a resentful son trading caustic quips with Daddy McClane.

The plot is also familiar in terms of other long-standing Die Hard conceits. A man who appears to be a legitimate political dissident, Koromov (Sebastian Koch), is actually just a glorified thief.  

As McClane aptly notes during the film’s action, it’s “always about the money.”

A Good Day to Die Hard is the weakest of the Die Hard films, despite its nods to series standards, for a few crucial reasons. The first involves the action.  It is quite impressive and spectacular at times, especially a car chase on a Moscow highway. And yet the action seems to possess the least visceral impact possible. There's something distant and remote about it all. Sure, there is plenty of shooting, jumping, crashing and exploding in this sequel...yet somehow it seems totally routine and un-engaging. 

The routine, ho-hum nature of the violence actually made me miss McClane surfing on a jet plane, in Live Free or Die Hard. That's how un-impactful it all feels.

A part of the problem be the aforementioned epic or spectacular scope, actually. As I’ve written in my other reviews, the Die Hard aesthetic altered the path of action films for a generation. Before Die Hard in '88, action stars were muscle-bound goliaths like Stallone or Schwarzenegger. The characters they often played seemed downright indestructible.

Die Hard flipped the script and gave us a very vulnerable -- but determined -- every-man hero in Willis’s fit but not steroidal John McClane.  He wasn't a muscle-man, he was one of us.

Yet the sad path of the franchise -- as I hope I have demonstrated in my reviews -- is a slippery slope towards mitigating the protagonist's defining characteristic: his mortality.  

In this film, McClane survives crashes, fireballs, collapsing skyscrapers -- and the radiation of Chernobyl -- with just light scratches.  Willis is also the most restrained and unemotional he has ever been in his trademark role, and taken together, it’s a lethal combination.  McClane might as well be a smirking robot at this point.

Actually, A Good Day to Die Hard is a lot like a Bourne movie: international in its locations, epic in its stunts, and featuring a kind of inscrutable figure as its star.  

But John McClane isn’t suffering from amnesia and searching for his identity, like Bourne was.

Unfortunately, the screen writers seem to be suffering from amnesia. They appear to have forgotten which franchise they are writing for.

“Well, it’s confusing…”

When John McClane (Willis) learns that his estranged son, Jack (Jai Courtney) is in some kind of legal trouble in Russia, he hops a plane to Moscow to help out.

In truth, Jack is a U.S. spy working to extradite a dissident named Komarov (Koch) who possesses a data file that could provide hard evidence that the Russian defense minister is conducting illegal business. 

Jack and John reunite, and rescue Komarov, but learn that he is in league with his daughter, Irina (Yuliya Sniger) on a daring heist.  In particular, they plan to rob a vault in Chernobyl, and procure weapon-grade uranium for sale on the black market.

Now -- without back-up or allies -- John and Jack must put their differences aside, travel to Chernobyl, and stop the Russian father-daughter combo from making the uranium available to terrorists.

“You’re out of your depth, John.”

The first truly international Die Hard is a disappointment. 

Throughout its history, the franchise has featured sharp writing and real clarity (not to mention brevity) in terms of crafting memorable characters. Sadly, this film gets mired down very quickly in Russian politics and power struggles, generating a feeling of boredom and ennui with the proceedings. 

I can understand choosing to pick up and run with the idea of John as a fish out of water again (as he was in L.A., in the 1988 original) but I can’t imagine why the decision was made to inject him into the thoroughly uninspiring business with Russian gangsters. We get long scenes here of Russian competitors threatening one another, and vying for superiority. Ultimately, it's all wasted time.

A Good Day to Die Hard also sets its finale, implausibly, in Chernobyl, and keeps John and Jack there for a good length of time. John asks if he is in any danger from the radiation, but never gets a satisfactory answer except that he could lose his hair.  

I’ll give him a response. 

He is in no danger, at all, because he has become an indestructible character at this point.

This John McClane can survive the collapse of buildings, fireballs, and yes, any radiation he might happen to pick up. The final act of A Good Day to Die Hard is so implausible and over-the-top that it is breathtaking in its cartoon dimensions.  Jack has apparently been gifted with his Dad’s indestructible DNA, and he survives all the same disasters too, while hardly breaking a sweat.

I can’t claim that the action is particularly badly filmed, or poorly orchestrated and edited. All I can claim is that the action doesn’t create any sense of pace or involvements.  I keep coming back to that elaborate street chase in Moscow.  

The stunts are great in that chase.  So why doesn’t it prove thrilling?  Why doesn’t it get the blood running? Why is the enjoyment of it only intellectual in nature, a recognition that the scene must have been a bear to orchestrate?

The only answer I can provide is that the audience doesn’t feel invested in the story, or the characters.  

And that’s probably the worst thing one could say about a Die Hard movie, since the franchise has always banked on the appeal of its funny, edgy, wise-cracking hero. 

But McClane is just a shadow of his former self here, sullen and quiet. He seems disengaged. 

I appreciate that the character wants to reconcile with his son, but McClane seems, well, highly medicated in this outing.  He doesn’t seem fully there, and so the audience is never fully engaged either.

Though I have made my feelings plain that this is my least favorite Die Hard movie, I feel I should note that it may not be quite as “rotten” as some critics claim.  Like the other films, it is competently made.  It’s just that -- unlike the other films in the franchise -- it feels heart-less and soulless.  There's something rote about it. For me it is a "C-" or thereabouts. But the rest of the films earned much higher than barely-passing grades.

One aspect of A Good Day to Die Hard that I enjoyed is the nearly sub-textual fascination with the 1980s…the era from which the John McClane saga sprang. 

This movie goes back to Chernobyl and reminds us of the disaster that occurred there (in franchise time, just a year or two before the Nakatomi Plaza incident). And one villain has the audacity to tell John “It’s not 1986, Reagan is dead.”

Perhaps, encoded in that line of dialogue, is the intent on the part of the writers and the directors, to update John for the post-9/11 Era; to bring McClane firmly and irrevocably into the 21^st century. 

I like the call-back to John’s beginning as an action-hero, and the acknowledgment that the Die Hard films have long since outlived their original context.

But the problem, again, is that no worthy paradigm replaces the old Die Hard one here. The Jason Bourne movies are their own thing, and have cast, already, a spell on the look and feel of modern Bond movies.  I see no motivating reason to import that aesthetic to Die Hard.

Already, that paradigm feels old and used up, and so A Good Day to Die Hard doesn’t gain anything from its sense of seriousness, or even from the international canvas.

How else can I put this?

It’s not a good day for Die Hard.  

My recommendation: bring John and the franchise home. And someone wake up Bruce Willis.

McClane Binge: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)

John McClane enters the 21^st century – not to mention the post-9/11 age -- in Live Free or Die Hard (2007), the first PG-13 entry in the durable action franchise.

Although it’s difficult to be particularly judgmental of the generally entertaining Live Free or Die Hard (2007) -- especially given the quality of its follow-up, A Good Day to Die Hard (2011) -- this movie also provides ample evidence to suggest the franchise’s best days are behind it.

In particular, Live Free or Die Hard features a bland, forgettable villain, played by Timothy Olyphant, and regurgitates, almost precisely, the format of Die Hard with a Vengeance by eschewing a single location story and partnering up McClane with another bicker-some partner, in this case one played by Justin Long. Where Samuel Jackson’s Zeus Carter battled McClane over issues of race, Long’s character offers a generational challenge to the put-upon cop.

Live Free or Die Hard’s greatest drawback, however, is that this third sequel to McTiernan’s 1988 classic transforms McClane into a veritable superman, one able to fly cars into helicopters and surf a military jet in flight. The whole idea of the every-man with a “die hard” personality is lost, to a great extent. And since Willis plays McClane with greater restraint than ever before, we don’t even have his darting eyes and furtive movements to suggest is he in constant jeopardy, or afraid for his life.

Certainly, there’s a great scene in Live Free or Die Hard wherein McClane describes exactly what it costs him, personally and emotionally, to be a hero, but that scene -- firmly planted in reality -- is but a passing blip in a film that, intentionally or not, makes the case that McClane is as indestructible as Arnie’s Terminator.

Len Wiseman directed Live Free or Die Hard, and the movie was a huge success at the box office. The film is no embarrassment (again, in light of A Good Day to Die Hard…) so this second-guessing of ingredients is largely academic.  Still, this entry in the canon accelerates Die Hard’s descent towards generic, mindless action franchise. It may not be a bad movie overall, but it is another rung down the ladder towards mediocrity.  

The fact that the movie’s PG-13 rating doesn’t even permit McClane to utter his immortal catchphrase -- “yippee kay yay, motherfucker” -- is an omen, perhaps, that business and demographic concerns have finally eclipsed artistic ones in the Die Hard universe.

“You’re a Timex watch in a digital age.”

After arguing with his daughter, Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), divorced cop John McClane (Willis) is tasked with bringing in a hacker, Matthew Farrell (Justin Long) who may have knowledge of an escalating cyber-attack on financial markets and the government of the United States.  

At the same time, however, assassins are sent to kill Matt, and John is once again in the wrong place, at the wrong time, facing a terrible threat.

As Matthew explains to John, a group of well-organized, well-funded hackers are attempting a “fire sale” attack on the U.S. 

When John gets Matthew to Washington D.C., he learns that the culprit is the once well-respected Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant), who pointed out to the government its lack of defenses in the case of a cyber-attack.

Now Gabriel is showcasing that lack of defense, but in reality, is planning a huge cyber-robbery.

When Lucy is kidnapped by Gabriel, John and Matthew must work together -- despite generational differences – to short-circuit Gabriel’s escalating attack and save the day.  

They will require the help of an expert hacker, a guy called Warlock (Kevin Smith).

“Another day in paradise.”

I’ve written about this concept before, but in the first decade of the twenty-first century -- just around the time of Live Free or Die Hard’s production, actually -- TV and film switched places; suddenly switched paradigms.  

Suddenly, television was the venue for intelligent, niche programming that would never have survived on a “big” network in earlier eras.  Think Dexter (2006-2014), or Mad Men (2006-2015).  And movies, which had survived and thrived through an independent film movement of great quality in the 1990s, began to become horribly, catastrophically homogenized, so as to attract all possible demographics and win the all-important opening weekend sweepstakes.  

One can argue why this switcheroo occurred and remains in place today, but Live Free or Die Hard feels like it bears the weight of the switch.  

Remember how Die Hard had all those weird-moments with pin-up girls, and Christmas party revelers snorting coke and having sex?

There are no moments like that in Live Free or Die Hard.

Remember how Zeus Carver and John McClane shared some really tough, really frank conversations about race relations in Die Hard with a Vengeance?

There is nothing so edgy or frank, or for that matter, real, in Live Free or Die Hard.

Remember how John McClane’s catchphrase alone gets each Die Hard film a hard R rating?

The character’s very catchphrase is not uttered in the theatrical version of Live Free or Die Hard.

It all makes one wonder if Die Hard was sold in a “fire sale” to Walt Disney Studios.

The switch to a more generic, safer approach, ill-suits the Die Hard franchise, because the films concern a stubborn man who is not easy to live with. McClane is confrontational, and, well, edgy. John makes enemies wherever he goes because he is “die hard.” He doesn’t tolerate fools, and he knows how to get things done. If someone isn’t helping him with a problem, they’re part of the problem. The first film made his world view abundantly clear, especially in terms of the “Dwayne” character, a bureaucrat and fool.  So if you take away John’s ability to cuss, and you’re already downgrading the individuality of the man, and his distinctive viewpoint.

But much worse than censoring John’s ability to swear, is the film’s insistence on censoring John’s ability to bleed, or break bones.  

In Live Free or Die Hard, John McClane is thrown off a jet in mid-air and keeps going. He doesn’t miss a beat.

John’s timing and reflexes -- while traveling 55 miles an hour -- are so great that he is able to “kill a helicopter” by launching a car at it.  

These are not the feats of a “die hard” police man; these are the feats of a superhero.

Another way to put it involves the concept of gravity. In the earlier Die Hard movies, John accepts the limits of gravity, and works within those limits to achieve his desired ends.  He sends C4 explosives strapped to a chair down an elevator shaft to blow up terrorists with an RPG. Gravity is his friend.  The chair drops eighty or so floors via the auspices of gravity. John delivers a bomb, in other words, with gravity’s help.

The set-pieces in Live Free or Die Hard, by contrast, are all about John defying gravity.  Jon surfs the back of a jet fighter -- standing on two feet -- as it accelerates and spins high in the air.  When at last he is thrown off the jet, he is flung a great distance, and his bones don’t shatter when he lands.  

See the difference?  Here, he is not a man working with gravity, he is a man somehow defying it…until he doesn’t. Look at how he drives a several-ton truck up a steep incline, and it doesn’t tumble down, towards the Earth. At least not immediately.

Here, it is clear, we have moved into the terrain of outright fantasy.  Die Hard becomes a stunt-filled comic book instead of a film series about a guy who is so stubborn, so thorny that he will just not give up.

It’s a huge shift in the paradigm, and one that doesn’t fit well with series history.  

Some of the outrageous stunts here would be more forgivable, perhaps, if we felt more in touch with the characters.  

Timothy Olyphant’s character, Thomas Gabriel, is the Marco Rubio of Die Hard villains. He’s young, he’s attractive, and he’s hip, but…on close analysis, he’s nothing more than acceptable. 

Like the villains in all the Die Hard movies, Gabriel is supposed to be a cunning and brilliant thief, who cloaks his venal love of money behind some act of apparent terrorism, in this case one that reveals to the U.S. government how vulnerable it is to cyber-attack.

But ask yourself a question: do you ever once believe that Olyphant’s Gabriel is a thief? Pulling a con?  Does he ever get a truly memorable scene, or even a memorable line of dialogue?

Mostly, he’s just a handsome bad guy who fits the template of action movie villain.  Now, this isn’t an attack on Olyphant, who is a great actor and has delivered remarkable performances in TV series such as Deadwood (2004-2006) and Justified (2010 – 2015). Even Olyphant has reported that the character of Gabriel is undeveloped.

Gabriel looks good, provides some generic menace, but never shows off any real humanity. The best two villains in the Die Hard series -- played by Alan Rickman and Jeremy Irons, respectively -- ably convey humanity.  We get the sense that they are particularly clever robbers, ones engineering the greatest cons (and robberies) of all time.  There’s no sense of joy or accomplishment from Gabriel. He’s an off-the-shelf, generic villain to go with the off-the-shelf, generic action scenes.

I appreciate aspects of the film. I appreciate that John is now world weary; beaten down by life. He sees very clearly that fighting bad guys has not made him happy, or held his family together. He has many regrets.  This is all conveyed in a powerful scene, and the moment demonstrates why Willis is so great for this role.  He boasts great range as an actor. 

But that’s the thing.  The screenplay must make use of that range. Not just here or there.  All the time. 

We should be encountering a John McClane who is in danger, on the edge, half-crazy, running on adrenaline.  The movie rarely uses him in that way.  Like a real person.  Like a person we will wish we could be. 

Except for a flash of humanity here or there, McClane might as well be played by Schwarzenegger this time out.

So no, this movie doesn’t “die hard.” But it doesn’t exactly “live free” either. 

It lives, instead according to the sanctified rules of homogenized movie-making in the 21^st century.  The key rule of that style of movie-making is: be as broad-based in your appeal as possible, no matter the subject matter of your film.

It’s all… “Yippy-kay-yay…you (gender neutral, PG rated put-down).”

And that’s a disappointment.)

McClane Blog: Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995)

The third Die Hard film re-establishes the action franchise’s reputation for excellence…with a vengeance.  

The highest grossing American film of 1995, Die Hard with a Vengeance -- directed by John McTiernan -- thrives so fully as a work of art and a splendid entertainment because it lets go of many of the series’ past-their-prime characters, settings, and ideas.

Die Hard with a Vengeance is set during a hot, sweaty summer -- when temperatures rise -- instead of during a bitter cold Christmas, for example. 

Similarly, this third Die Hard film doesn’t play the “fish out of water” card a third time, and the writers permit John McClane (Bruce Willis) to actually work in the city he actually calls home: New York. It’s nice to see him on his own turf for a change.

And even more rewardingly, this second sequel doesn’t shoehorn in cameos from supporting characters who are no longer crucial to the narrative. 

Beloved but ancillary personalities such as Al Powell, Dick Thornburg and even Holly Gennero McClane are all absent from the action this time around, and that’s as it should be. Accordingly, they no longer divert time and energy away from the storytelling.  

That probably sounds terribly harsh, but the fact of the matter is that action movies shouldn’t be forced to cater to the demands of fan service.They should focus, instead, on thrills, suspense and movement.

This Die Hard even eschews the franchise’s trademark obsession with a threat in a single, isolated location (a snowed-in airport, or burning building), for a sprawling city-wide chase instead.

Finally, Die Hard with a Vengeance adds an unforgettable new character to go toe-to-toe with McClane on his harrowing journey: Samuel L. Jackson’s Zeus Carver.  

Accordingly, a man “alone” story (and franchise) becomes a buddy story instead; one with razor-sharp repartee and a high degree of consciousness about the black/wide divide in New York City at the time.  

Where Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990) enthusiastically regurgitated the ending from the first film, and took pains to repeat familiar scenes and character tropes, Die Hard with a Vengeance feels edgy and fresh by contrast. The franchise feels rejuvenated.

All these changes are a recipe for a return to form, and Die Hard with a Vengeance proves itself the second best film in the five-strong saga, behind only the original Die Hard.

“It’s nice to be needed.”

During a hot summer, a mad terrorist who calls himself Simon detonates a bomb in busy Manhattan. As the city attempts to respond to this act of terrorism, Simon demands that NY police officer John McClane -- now “two steps shy of being a full-blown alcoholic” -- play a game with him.

John, still mourning the end of his marriage, has no choice but to agree, and his first task involves wearing a sandwich-board with racial profanity printed on it in Harlem. 

Understandably, John’s incendiary garb catches the attention of Zeus Carver (Samuel L. Jackson), a proud and outspoken individual who interferes…and thus becomes part of Simon’s plan.

Simon leads John and Zeus on a merry chase through the city, playing “Simon Says” with them regarding an incoming train, and a bomb in a park and other challenges.

Soon, John learns the truth: Simon is actually Peter Gruber (Jeremy Irons), the brother of Nakatomi terrorist Hans Gruber. 

And while revenge appears to be his game, this Gruber shares his brother’s uncanny ability to misdirect authorities.

“This guy wants to pound you until you crumble.”

Die Hard with a Vengeance commences with a blast. The sequel opens with a crisply-cut montage of ordinary life in Manhattan, edited to the Lovin Spoonful’s 1966 hit, “Summer in the City.”  

Then a bomb detonates on a busy street, flipping over cars in the process, and the idea of tempers flaring on this hot summer day is beautifully expressed.  

This is a day which will see an explosion of violence and hot temperatures. Not only is this a summer-time setting a determined shift away from the wintry, Christmastime Die Hard and Die Harder, but the setting enhances the idea of temperatures rising among two very different men: John and Zeus.  They are like oil and water, and do not work together easily or well.

And that idea, of course, ties in with the “binary liquid” bombs Simon utilizes. These explosives only detonate when two unlike fluids flood together into one vessel. On their own, they are not combustible, but in combination…watch out!  

As one character notes “once the two liquids are mixed…be somewhere else.”

This is an observation abundantly true of John and Zeus as well. They bicker, quip, and challenge each other throughout the movie, with tempers soaring and accusations of racism flaring. But they also manage to solve problems, work together, and save the day.  

When they combine, things do get hot, though. Indeed, everywhere John and Zeus go, they behind leave a trail of destruction and explosions. They are very much two unlike ingredients combining to explosive effect.

I appreciate that the movie makes race an issue, and doesn’t soft pedal its importance in the dialogue. So much of Die Hard 2: Die Harder felt rote, a by-the-numbers repetition of the ingredients that made Die Hard so great. 

Yet there seems an ambitious attempt here to move back into a realm approximating our reality. John and Holly have broken up, and their rift isn’t easily repaired. John is an alcoholic, and has lost his sense of purpose. The reality of racism -- and racial mistrust -- fits into this leitmotif as well, and neither main character is ever treated as the bad guy. Instead, they circle each other warily, wondering if the other is a racist, or just very, very opinionated. Both men are heroes.

The late great Michael Kamen (1948-2003) contributes another pulse-pounding score for a Die Hard film here, and in this case, he weaves the popular Civil War song “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” (1863) into the proceedings many, many times. It works beautifully in the context I’ve described.

It’s an exaggeration to say that John and Zeus are fighting a civil war with one another, perhaps, but the movie does feature the idea that Simon is provoking a war of sorts in New York while he waltzes into the Federal Reserve Building to rob its gold.  Gruber knowingly makes temperatures rise on a hot day, so no one will detect his true agenda. He sets the City against itself. He sets blacks against whites. He even sets parents against police (setting a bomb in a school), and he mixes those “binary liquid bombs” of McClane and Carter.  That sounds very much like the definition of a civil war.

Irons also gives audiences the third Die Hard villain in a row to fake an American accent or dialect, and the idea has totally lost its impact by now, even if, overall Irons makes for a fiendishly effective villain.  I must admit, I enjoy the film’s call-back to Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), and love the idea of that mastermind boasting an equally diabolical brother. Simon/Peter has some interesting tics, or at least appears to, but like his brother, he is really all about the money.

Die Hard with a Vengeance also succeeds because the action alternates from frenetic kineticism to buttoned-down suspense so assuredly.  

Sure, we get some amazingly choreographed moments like John’s impromptu taxi drive through Central Park, but then -- moments later -- we get this contained, intimate suspense scene involving the defusing of a bomb, or the playing of a Simon Says game. 

The film is actually like a game of Simon Says in terms of its structure. It stops then starts, then stops again, until given license to cut loose. Every Die Hard movie needn’t work in this way,  of course but this new paradigm makes the film feel fresh and unpredictable.

Die Hard with a Vengeance possesses so much energy and verve, so much heat, if you will, that one might conclude it is only “two steps shy of being a full-blown” masterpiece.