Die Hard: With a Vengeance

My darkest sexual desire. It's totally not gay.

I fucking love this movie. I love it like Heath Ledger loves prescription meds. If it asked me to rim-romp it’s stank-tube then I would happily, and hungrily, oblige. Die Hard is a testament to what one man can do with a white singlet, a drinking problem and a penchant for reckless endangerment. It’s a man’s film for men, and maybe lesbians if they like explosions and Bruce Willis (and from some of the dykes I’ve seen, Bruce Willis is an improvement).

For those of you shamefully unfamiliar wih the Die Hard series, let me give you a quick run down.

Die Hard - Bruce Willis has to go to some bullshit Christmas party being hosted by Mr Sulu’s dad because his bitch wife asks him to. Then Professor Snape comes along with a sweet beard and starts killing asian men in their 50’s. Now, this doesn’t sit well with John McClane (Willis) because if anyone kills people, it’s him. So he kills a bunch of people, stops the safe from being cracked, befriends Carl Winslow and throws Alan Rickman off the 32nd floor of Nakatomi Towers. He does all this whilst sick with no shoes and a bad case of jetlag. Impressed yet?

Die Hard 2: Die Harder – Bruce willis teams up with Detective Sipowicz and a half dozen jelly-filled donuts to stop a bunch of ex-military mercenaries from taking over an airport in a hostage situation while his wife’s plane circles overhead, being unable to land. He has 58 minutes to stop their plot before he plane runs out of fuel and crashes. Man, this woman is more trouble than she’s worth. Anyway, the military sends in special forces to deal with the terrorist issue, only to discover that they’re been in cahoots with the mercs the whole time in an elaborate plot to steal a plane and rescue some hispanic drug lord who is also the dictator of the fictional nation of Val Verde. Mi Gusta! So McClane kills a bunch of people and makes Dennis Franz look like a competant security guard. Then he blows up a plane full of bad guys. Still not impressed?

Die Hard 3: Die Harderer – Opening credits roll. A building explodes 10 seconds in. This scene should aptly set the tone for the rest of the movie. So Bruce Willis is “working on a nice, fat suspension” when he gets forcibly reinstated to play an unbelievably sweet game of ‘Simon Says’ with a crazed East German (Jeremy Irons) and Samuel L. Jackson by walking the streets of Harlem with a sandwich board that says “I hate niggers”. Subtlety wasn’t his strong point, I’ll admit. So he teams up with his signature singlet and the amusingly racist Sammy J. to stop a bomb on a train, run over mimes, solve puzzles, cover a fat man in pancake syrup and foil the plans of Simon (who turns out to be Alan Rickmans brother) by shooting a shit load of people and wearing a bloodied singlet. If you’re not impressed by now I’d really look into getting medicated for being super lame.

There is a fourth film in the series and a soon to be fifth installment, titled Die Harder Still and Die Hardest, respectively. I wish I was serious there, because they actually called them Live Free or Die Hard (and pathetically Die Hard 4.0 in Australia, like it needs a fucking update or something to bugfix out Justin Long, the twat. Grow a proper moustache you hipster cunt.) and A Good Day to Die Hard. Just terrible. The guy who came up with those titles is clearly this generations Hemingway. I’m sorry those sentences dragged on a bit, I just really hate that guy’s face.

Willis and Jackson have an amusing relationship, kind of like cocktail of equal parts mutual hate and respect. It works well in the film and, accompanied by Jackson’s seemingly endless supply of “I don’t need help from whitey” attitude, gives birth to humorous situations like Mrs. Wayans births welfare cheques. I mean kids. This neenish tart duo reminds me a lot of Miami Vice, only without the bad hair and homosexual innuendo. “Blow me.” “I’ll drive this truck up your arse.” On second thought, scratch that.

Bruce Willis is the king. Sure he’s not the biggest, or the strongest, or even the least wig wearing guy in Hollywood. But what he is is the Bruce Willisiest. He has that shit in droves. Bruce Willis sweats machismo and bullets made of pepperoni and chinese porn magazines. Combine that raw arse-kicking power with John McClanes distinct lack of mental maturity and you have about 215 lbs of testosterone and singlet powered justice. This guy kills dozens of people with a surprising amount of casualness.

Jeremy Irons was amazing. His performance is definately a highlight of the movie. He’s criminal sociopathy and witty repartee in a blue tank top. I’m not sure the role would have been as good as it was had another actor stepped in to play Simon.

This isn’t a movie for math teachers or hippies or people who aren’t cool. This is a movie for people who can tell the difference between good moustache and a bad lip rug. It’s a movie about justice. It’s a movie about social equality. It’s a movie about singlets. But mostly it’s a movie about how being a bad-ass get’s you what you want, as long as what you want is to kick a metric ton of arse and look cool doing it. It’s funny, it’s clever and it had a very good story under all the punches and bullets and black jokes.

If you’ve never seen it, then I feel sorry for you because you’re probably a math teacher with an old man moustache. If you have, then watch it again, because you know you want to.
 
I wonder what Bruce Willis uses to get those pesky blood and oil stains out of his whites?

Me? What do I use to keep black stains off my whites? A hose.


Just kidding folks, I only use a hose to keep them off my front lawn.