Hello everyone, welcome to the Polarize podcast, the place for all your polarizing movie needs.
I am your host James, we are talking about a polarizing movie today, a movie that is
divisive amongst the audiences and critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
In this one, the critics do not like it and the audience does.
The critics gave it a 59%, audiences gave it an 83%, which means they disagree, which
means that we are going to get into it.
This is diehard with a vengeance.
It's diehard dieharder and diehardist.
This is the Papa Bear of the diehard movies, but there's more after this.
This is kind of also the sweet gooey center of the, is there five movies?
Is it the Colby Locks Bear or is it the Papa Bear?
I'm mixing my metaphors, it's okay, you understand.
And Bruce Willis at the helm again.
I am your helm host, your James.
I am your James.
You're one and only.
And I would like to give you a special introduction to my good friend, your Brandon.
You're great, Brandon E. Me.
It's your Brandon and my James.
You're Brandon and my James.
We're the podcast hostess with the mostesses.
Yeah, hello, Mr. James.
Hello.
What's going on?
I, oh man, we got the boys today.
Today's an episode for the boys.
Am I right?
Oh, you said it brother.
I like how this one doesn't even say three is just with a vengeance.
I love it.
Well, I love it for it.
Yeah.
I mean, it's courageous, I think, to do it that way because, you know, some people
zig and they do a three, but this movie doesn't do that.
It zags all the way.
And again, we love it for it.
I have never, never seen this and I've never talked about it with anyone.
So this is a special, special day for, for both of us.
That's your walk with it.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, you know what?
Before we get into our walks with, with Bruce, with, oh, the boss.
What's his, no, what's his alter ego?
Oh, it's, oh, and when he's the musician, like, on cat with that.
No, no, no, no.
Bruce Willis has a, like an alter ego that, you know, he, he uses.
Oh, when he goes to check into hotels and stuff.
No, he made music and then, but he, this nickname that he has was given to him growing
up in New Jersey.
I think he's a man.
Bruce Springsteen.
The boss.
It was just a kid.
Oh my God.
I never noticed they've never been in the same room at the same time.
Oh, my God.
It's weird that he picked Bruce though, because that's just the same name.
I was thinking you were talking about his Aqueduct security character.
He's called a Mickey O'Brien.
When he's pretending to be that guy with, he's like, Hey, give me your jacket and your
hat.
He's like, Hey, it's Mickey O'Brien.
Aqueduct security.
What's going on here?
Love seeing McClane play a character.
Bruce Willis play a character playing a character.
Oh, me too, man.
Dude playing the dude who's playing another dude.
We're all dudes.
Yeah.
But so it isn't just before we, yeah, let's get into our walks with Bruce.
We're all dudes.
Yeah.
And there's another dude here with us today.
He goes by the name of CJ.
What's that mean?
Get on in.
That was a rhymed intro.
Holy shit.
CJ, I hope, uh, Bruno, by the way, Bruno is what his nickname was.
Bruce's nickname was Bruno Bruno.
He released an album as the singer of said group and the name of that record is called
the return of Bruno.
Um, anyways, but CJ, hey, how's it going?
I want to listen to some of that.
What's up fellas?
What's up everyone?
I'm, uh, can I also be your CJ?
Um, yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
Yeah, you can.
The collective CJ.
We are all CJ.
Like, like people have been known to all be Spartacus, we can all be CJ as well.
I hope everybody is out there listening is CJing themselves.
If you aren't already, this is your opportunity to CJ yourself.
Please feel free to CJ yourself now.
Put your CJ glasses on now.
Oh my God.
I found some return of Bruno.
Can we just do maybe do a little sample of it?
I mean, look at this guy.
It looks like he does some harm harmonica action possibly.
Oh yeah.
But let's come in right up.
Right up.
Respect yourself down in Hollywood.
Young blood under the boardwalk.
Secret agent.
He doesn't under the boardwalk.
James Bond.
Wow, man.
I would love to hear Bruno's Bob.
Fun time.
Use myself and flirting with disaster.
Okay, what is this?
Let's hear coming right up.
Yeah.
Oh.
Oh, Bruno.
Look at this sheepish grin.
This is the Mona Lisa smile.
Very bold Bruno, very bold, very bold.
And fresh.
Wow.
Right up.
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
I love this.
Bruno's here baby.
Wow.
Woo.
That's insane.
And for anything and I'll say up.
Come right up.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
And now we're going to sit there and talk about this.
This is a 10.
I'm going to find CJ on a street corner and I'm going to go
and see what pitchwork gives it.
I'm bringing it back.
The return of Bruno.
Oh, they just have Bruno Mars guys.
You want to listen to Bruno Mars and what did they give 24 K magic?
24 K magic.
They gave a 6.2.
Good.
Oh, Bruno Mars 24 K magic on his latest uptown funk vocalist and animatronic
sequins.
So Bruno Mars compresses all of his various persona into one.
The retro song and dance man who happens to be really, really horny.
What a backhanded compliment that they called him an animatronic.
Animatronic sequins suit.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
So he's a lot of addictives.
Wow.
He was cooked up in a lab.
Well, I don't disagree.
Industry plant.
Yeah, for sure.
He's generic.
Oh, he does music.
Bruno.
What do you think?
Oh, Bruce.
Well, Bruce Willis is Bruno.
I guess we, I guess we can say we prefer that to Bruno Mars.
He's the superior Bruno.
I think all of us are on board with that take.
So yeah.
Yeah.
It's really given Bruno vibe.
I guess there's like another one we don't talk about one of the Bruno's
and then there's the, the Sasha Barrico and Baron.
Of course.
Yes.
That's in a different vein.
It's a different thing.
Yeah.
It is a different thing.
There can be, yeah.
Brunos aren't mutually exclusive.
Yeah.
However, again, we'll emphasize.
Yeah.
On this podcast, I am your James and this is your Brandon and this is your
C.
Yeah.
And welcome.
We are all together in metaphorically speaking by and large, but I mean,
in this case, me and CJ are in different rooms in the same place.
But yeah, it's good to be here to talk about this movie guys.
I'm excited about hearing everybody's walk with Bruno as we've established
because we're all in the same place.
We're not with Bruno as we've established because I don't know.
I'll just kind of set the pace for everybody to kind of give their
history with it.
But Bruce Willis is a huge fucking deal in our lives, right?
When it comes to just, you know, the age we're at and the movies he made
and and whatnot.
Do you have a defining Bruce performance CJ or one that like you
globb down to first like as like your first big Bruce performance that
you noticed him as?
Yeah, I don't want to cop out by saying it was it was the original diehard.
But I think a lot of a lot of people where he really gained traction
was the fifth element.
Oh, yeah.
Interesting.
Cool.
I remember just walking into a blockbuster or a Hollywood video
and just seeing the big billboards and it was just plastered
and everyone when that movie came out.
I mean, on Friday night at a Hollywood video, man, that was a that was a vibe.
I mean, oh my God, yeah.
You're lying out the door and you were getting in there and you were
asking somebody, hey, do you guys have any more of that fifth element?
You know, and he's like, sorry, you can stand by.
You can actually check the return bin if you want.
Do you remember checking the return bin?
Yeah.
You know, just to see if somebody might have, you know,
return it while you were in a store.
Yeah, I got to get the key and then you make the person open up this box
of just loose VHS tapes.
Not loose VHS tapes, man.
But fun cases on it.
Yeah.
What a scene.
But if I, but if I was being honest, for sure, it would be the original diehard,
man, that really cemented my my love of action films with with, you know,
the big three, man, Bruce Willis Arnold Schwarzenegger and Celestia Stallone,
man, that at the time, you know.
Oh, for sure.
That that has to be the same for me as the first diehard.
And I think it branched out from there and seeing him and his part in
Pulp Fiction even was just like, oh, that's yeah, that's the guy from diehard.
And, uh, or I even as, you know, as a kid, like seeing a kid's movie at the time
when you would branch into that kind of thing as well was, I think there's a
movie called the kid where he like has a younger version of himself.
He's like taken care of is like somehow like the child version of himself is
around and he's kind of like get back in touch with his child.
Like a Disney movie, I believe. And then there's of course, six cents. But yeah,
it's got to be diehard for me. What about you, Brandon?
Yeah, I'm just trying to think because my recollection is is diehard was a thing
that kind of happened in the maybe a little bit more in the background for me
because of the hyperviolence and the language of that movie.
I want to say that I almost like maybe an Armageddon could have been more of
like a bigger Bruce intro for me. Definitely.
Then the diehards because Armageddon was just one of those movies, man.
That was it was huge when it came out and it played.
It was so quick to be on TV and to continue to be on TV and a presence in my life.
And yeah, Armageddon, I think. And then the six cents, too.
But that was another one that's like, you know, it came out when I was nine.
So I definitely didn't see it then. I would have seen it probably maybe in college.
And I'm trying to think because I feel like around the same time that six cents
came into my life, Pulp Fiction came into my life as well.
I want to I feel like I want to say it was like mainly Armageddon with some diehard
than fifth element than like a six cents Pulp Fiction situation.
But I guess I would just emphasize again of like the important diehard being
like a kind of understood big deal, whether or not it was a big deal in my life.
It was just like everybody knows Bruce and we're collectively as a as America.
It seemed like that kind of energy you would kind of get as a kid and interpret as a kid of like everybody
in America knows Bruce Willis and we're all on board with Bruce Willis.
And so he was if anything, I could maybe argue that he was like more of a celebrity than a movie star.
You know, or that would be the first iteration of him before he became more of a genuinely kind of beloved movie star in my life,
even as I grew deeper into my love of movies and very types of movies and just knowledge of movies in general.
Like, you know, having things like a Pulp Fiction where it and fifth element for that matter of like,
here's an actor that is OK with being in those roles seemingly like is willing to do that fundamentally to be in a movie where,
Ford understood Blade Runner when he was probably in it.
you know, you can you definitely get the sense of like, I don't think Bruce probably understood a lot of what was going on in fifth element,
He just mainly globed on to and understood the importance of that archetype, you know, just like with fifth element at a fundamental level,
he's like a New Yorker, you know, being thrust into this whole adventure and situation, and he is the he is the star of it.
He is going on an adventure of pushing himself to the limit physically and doing a lot of fun stuff.
And yeah, so I would say my walk with Bruce now kind of recollecting and working it out here.
I would say almost his first introduction would be celebrity and then I would say maybe Armageddon or he definitely embraces and inhabits that archetype
and I'd say like even pushes it a bit further into some tropes that are replicated a lot today.
Like, you know, you do them and it would almost be a joke but the way that he does it is just kind of, I don't know, it's singular and it's kind of at the
beginnings of that brand of kind of rogue cop who's divorced and drunk and is kind of I guess I'm thinking like lethal weapon era where it's just really on the nose
so they can kind of push it pretty far with how kind of chaotic they are.
And I mean, it's not the first time and there's a lot of this movie that almost reminds me of like a 70s action movie or something.
Maybe it's just how it's shot in New York and the dirt and grime of it all and how that feels, how that and a little more graphic and violent and everything.
And that feels like it's coming from a 70s sort of place but that sort of drunken like off the cuff sort of detective that, you know, he gets his badge back.
You don't even see him lose his badge in this.
You don't get to like, get in here, give me a badge and give me your gun.
He doesn't even have it at the beginning of the movie and I love the hangover thing coming back constantly for starting to get into it.
And that's that's the introduction is he's just going through like gnarly hangover and then we get also introduced to this police chief.
Well, I'm just like, I don't know.
I'm not crazy about this police chief.
I guess he accomplishes the task of being like ineffectual and not and kind of incompetent and like things are just too much for him to handle a lot of times.
He's just exasperated and just kind of like, I don't know.
Just McClane like you gotta you gotta help me with this.
There's people here all the traffic.
Oh, just tell him to hold on.
I don't know.
Someone help me here.
He gets out of it.
Yeah, McClane's much more.
But then it makes McClane look that much.
So much cooler.
We were talking earlier.
Yeah, what about you CJ was Bruce?
Um, well, no, I actually wanted to touch on James's point because it seems to be an ongoing theme through the first, second and third die hard about this kind of.
Um, incompetent leadership that seems to always be in Bruce will Bruce Willis's life that she that makes him look like such a stud, you know, um, but there there is just, you know, throughout the all of the die hearts there is this theme that nobody can figure this out except detective McClane or Lieutenant McClane and in this in this regard.
So, so it is it is it is funny.
Yeah, absolutely.
And then you're just on board with all the tactics that he needs to use to get out in and out of situations and the difference with this one being it is a two hander for the entire movie Samuel Jackson is with him and pretty much the entire movie.
And I think that is a pretty fun dynamic.
I think that I love it.
I think that is an excellent casting for sure. And those two together speaking of Pulp Fiction and everything I'm trying to think if they have a scene together in Pulp Fiction.
I don't think they do.
Maybe the scene when they're like at the strip club or whatever the club is for.
Yeah, I think it's just Vincent or Vincent's John Travolta, right? I think he just shows him. He's just like mad dogs in the whole time.
I think so too, maybe.
Yeah, anyways, yeah.
Excellent choice, though, I mean, because they're both come I mean this movie was shot in 1995 right and so Pulp Fiction was 1994 and so right after Pulp Fiction these you know these two get team teamed up together now.
And they couldn't have picked a better choice for for this.
What really turns into a buddy cop movie I think you know, you know, and you don't go into a diehard movie thinking it's gonna you're going there to see Lieutenant McClain fuck shit up you know and kill terrorists and you know, narco traffickers and whatnot but all of a sudden now you're in you're in
a dead end and it becomes you know he's teaming up with with a civilian Samuel Jackson. So I think it's a really cool dynamic that they use a buddy cop type of a flick, you know, throughout the entire movie.
I agree. Yeah, I think it worked a lot better than I had expected and there were there were times because I just wasn't sure what to expect like I haven't seen the second diehard.
And the third one that I'm jumping into so I'm not really sure like they kept making a couple after that I think I've seen one other one after this but I wasn't sure what I was getting into always love Samuel Jackson, but he's been in a lot of movies.
I'm not really sure what what the quality might be and it ends up being them two and their chemistry together throughout the movie like pushes a lot of a lot of things through and then when I think I'm going to get a little border it's going to be too much they keep me having fun and and a lot of good one liners and back and forth between them.
I mean, I question like why why Samuel Jackson stays at a certain point.
I'm just like just go home.
No, but Jeremy Irons wants them there right. There's always this kind of every step of the way, you know, it and they mention it to almost like because of this, you know, you might forget in question, but it's always this.
It comes back to Jeremy Irons character Simon wants him there, you know, and makes and enjoys having him there really because there are plenty of times on phone calls where
I've been likes Samuel Jackson's character Zeus more because Zeus is smarter than John McLean Zeus is a very smart capable guy and it works so well from a the dynamic between the two of them, not only because of them as actors just vibe so fucking well together,
but the characters themselves is like Zeus is also from New York and understands the streets because there's so much in transit shit.
Yeah, this in this movie where we got to go to this place in New York in a very short amount of time.
There are a lot of different transportation vehicles. Yeah.
Right.
Which is exciting.
Yeah.
It's fascinating to me from like just a Southern California perspective and you hear the interaction between Bruce and and Samuel Jackson when you know Simon Jeremy Irons character tells him, you know, you got to get to this part of New York City and within within you
know right off the tip of his tongue Samuel Jackson saying that's 90 blocks from here.
And and I'm like, I'm so for failure.
And it's just so amazing transit wise how you could know something, you know, that that intersection is 90 blocks from from you, you know, and and how to get there.
So yeah, because I mean they're both from they're both from there and they're the movie does well to establish that they're both capable of knowing those things.
So that it isn't ever really too much of a question or too much time, I think more importantly is not spent on figuring out the specifics.
You're just allowed to go on the ride with two pretty capable individuals through this whole like like everybody in this.
I mean all of the main players in this aside from you know we've kind of brought up and I'm sure we'll comment again on the bureaucracy and you know the organizations and whatnot their issues.
But you know it'll be they get a call from Simon he gives them a kooky riddle, then they collectively figure out that riddle riddle together and the dynamic every time of them figuring out these problems.
Is a blast because they're yelling at each other.
They're arguably the most racist people and the least racist at the same time.
It's just such a weird line that they walk where a majority of the stuff they see together are like racial digs at each other.
But then there's just like such a understood respect for each other.
At the same time, it's you're like well okay well they're racist for sure.
But God damn it you know they're like they kind of really.
I don't know love each other it's so weird how on board you are for the team of them like.
I think that came up midway in the movie for me was I genuinely believe that you know, Samuel L Jackson will take a bullet for John McLean and they just met each other today.
And there's like so many situations of respect establish and understood from each other.
That makes this movie a blast because it's like so quickly do you get into two two guys just giving each other shit.
And you know just and they're strangers but they're New Yorkers and they are they understand each other so easily.
It's it really just makes for I mean what an exciting time you know what a what an adventure to be on with these with these two guys going through all of this stuff.
That's one of the best things about buddy buddy, especially buddy cop sort of thing is like when they're enabled to bust each other's balls.
Oh my God you don't want them like agreeing on everything they do you want to be like, we should do it this way no we should do it my way and then like the back and forth between them and then any like.
It being messy because they're both kind of independent they both have both have like their own ways of doing things is more fun that way and having like an odd couple sort of thing and yeah again I like having that introduced into this franchise.
I just wasn't I wasn't sure what a die hard movie was or what it was going to be.
And it could easily be the thing of like oh well a die hard movie is when you lock John McClane in a location, and he's got to figure his way out to like dismantle it from inside out and get help from outside and everything that could easily be what all of these
movies are I haven't seen all of them but I thought it was cool that like we went fucking everywhere in this we saw a lot of New York like I hate when you go to New York and movies and you don't see a lot of them like this is so cool seeing New York in the 90s and like this big great
papaya and shit and the fucking subway and like and then driving the taxi it was like yeah I'm seeing a lot this is this is awesome and then going on the taxi through the taxis yeah through the park and yeah wow that was awesome and like the
bridge like I love that so much and then they're running and like they're driving the two towers like 20 or two towers like right behind them and everything to just like those those kind of shots of like really reminding you and in some ways
not so subtle but a lot of other ways it's just kind of like a big part of the the tapestry of the movie and I overall like thought the frenetic camera make camera work was pretty fun and made it interesting and everything but there was
a lot of times we were just pushed it a little too far or like okay like take it easy just like in the shakiness oh yeah shakiness yeah but I didn't I was like I like this is like kind of ahead of its time and a lot of other ways there's just one time near the end where
they're like looking for the trucks on the bridge and they're like it's right there look and it really looked like someone was in a car just trying to zoom really quick and like even me like if they didn't remind me like it's right there and try to yell at you to look I was like I don't even seen anything I'd really had to be like wait well okay there yeah there it is
but a lot of times was like wow this just keeping the energy and making me feel like I'm on the ground with them yeah my god there was this one shot where it's the woman I can't remember her name because I think it said so few times in the movie
but he's a total fucking badass I loved every like her vibe and what she was bringing to the whole thing and the shot of her lady yeah but Jeremy iron is also kind of bisexual you know he's kind of got that going on which is such a weird
no it's not weird it's very stereotypical vibe of like a villain the movie is like I think it's weird I guess there there's a lot the movie thinks it's weird therefore that's why it is a character is a characteristic of Jeremy irons character because him trying to portray a maniac like a sinister maniac is going to
coded in this now outdated I would argue stereotypes of having like this yeah he seems like bisexual or has some kind of yeah or or dare I say European weird
very true most I wish we could you know call up a German person one of those abilities people have phono German and ask them how offensive his accent is because I would imagine they would find it incredibly offensive
most likely thank God I'm not one because I love I love Jeremy Irons so much and really like elevate this movie even higher yeah it's you're already having so much fun with Bruce Willis and say well Jackson like them too like you're seeing them the majority of the movie but then you cut to fucking
Jeremy Irons just twiddling his mustache hell yeah this is a good time yeah it's so unfortunate because just Jeremy Irons voice and accent naturally is just it's so awesome but to hear it but here I'm to hear him do this atrocious
and I think it actually culminates in the in the bank scene when he finally goes into the Federal Reserve glasses on glasses on and and the banker says you know says you know we've had this explosion and Jeremy Irons reaction is good Lord
and it's terrible oh my god yeah it's in and out and it's definitely not to the to the level of a gruber I Hans Alan Rickman so so I want to talk about that I didn't you see overly German in them he's been a little bit since I don't I don't remember I could understand
not to the level of yeah I just it's but I don't know if I knew this about the movie because it that was a brother that would he was a brother gruber that he was a yeah I
I thought of that could have I'm kind of glad it almost felt like throw away and then when it when he's confronted about it later he's like you didn't even like your brother and then he's just like there's one difference between liking or like
letting and letting a dumb American or something like it's like yeah I can fucking hate my brother but it's it's not your place to take him away from me yeah but I like I don't know that was kind of a fun dynamic where you just like talk shit about Hans and then you just German just kind of laughs it off and kind of like yeah he fucking
sucked I know man huge pain in the ass but I I don't know it kind of just makes me think of the obviously in inventing a trope but it is a I feel like a great use of a trope that that has I don't know if this movie and a lot of ways seem so incredibly influential I guess is by and large what I would like to get at because
the pace of it.
The type of set pieces the type of dialogue the way that it's edited there's just so many characteristics about this movie that I think it makes an incredibly like influential into what I now would attribute to still current trends in action films.
Yeah I'm running me like a fast and furious or something.
100% yeah.
For this movie and for this franchise watching it because I had expressed this to CJ off Mike but.
lot like you are you are given so fucking much in this movie.
There's kind of like the first half and the second half like the first half
really is the game and he sets them on these little
little with these little clues on these scavenger hunts.
And then the second gets into fun, a fun idea.
Very like a gold at the Federal Reserve and all that.
And then I remember that kind of hour mark left.
I was like, what?
How is there so much left of this movie?
Like it seems to be like coming to a crescendo.
And then I was, yeah, blown away of getting to some of those later set
pieces, like the bridge to the boat and all that stuff.
But yeah, we can go through.
Arguably, it's like 45 minutes at that point of just straight action sequence.
Exactly. Like the chase is literally at a point relatively early on in this movie.
It's rocket ship is taken off is leaving Houston.
Like we are we are just going to go to fuck little places.
Everybody is going to be like, we have to go now.
This has to happen now.
And we're like jumping off a thing.
We're getting in a thing and driving it off a thing.
And you think it's over.
And by the way, it ends with a fucking helicopter battle.
Like what's shit, man?
In Canada.
Yeah, you think the movie's over and it's like, you got away.
We got to go fucking.
Oh, the absolute ground in that helicopter is my question.
I don't get away from the wires.
He uses a gun to take out a helicopter in a way that isn't like shooting the
helicopter. It's shooting another thing that fucking blows the helicopter up.
And I love to that Samuel Jackson's like he like walks over to him.
That's like casually just sitting by that watch this whole thing.
And he's like, yeah, just let him fucking.
Baby, let him cook, baby.
Let him.
Cook.
Let let them cook.
Let them cook.
Fucking awesome.
And it just like keeps on ramping up for for an extended period of time near near
the end there.
But this beginning is kind of like us.
I he pretty much says what saw us as like, I want to play
a game and he starts, he he hones in on on McClain.
It makes it I get a little worried because it's like, oh, we're making the
movie all about McClain and he's going to have some vendetta against him.
And it seemed kind of like when he is confronted about that later too,
he's just like, well, life can have its advantages or whatever where he's like,
I really just wanted all those gold.
But getting fucking with you was just an added bonus to this.
And I was relieved of that too, because if it was all about just getting
revenge on McClain, that would get hokey and not as fun of a way.
I don't know.
I it it was the beginning and that's kind of what it was focused on and what
they thought.
But then they as it starts unraveling, like, oh, there's they're like,
oh, there's something more here.
And I appreciated that.
Um, but yeah, I also, yeah.
Yeah.
Some of these clues were like, uh, not the most like well thought out thing
or whatever, but that's what's fun with like you're dealing with something
from a madman.
So it doesn't have to be perfect, but finding the right amount of gallons
and the water, I can tell you how to do that.
Do you guys remember?
Do you guys know the solution to that problem?
The way they described it at the end didn't make sense.
That's like, uh, making it any easier than what his first plan was is probably
what I would have done is what he's originally described.
He goes like, yeah, that's probably what I would do is like,
pull up the third one and then empty that into the four core one and then do,
try to do one third more of the, of the three core, but yeah,
that's gotta be precise.
Yeah.
Right.
CJ, do you know the, the solve for that?
I don't.
And I have to, I have to admit that, um, you know, this was probably my
22nd time watching this film and, and, uh, my brain, my brain just goes blank
every time that they, uh, that they're trying, that they're trying to figure
out the gallon because the, the whole thing is that you have to be precise.
Um, and so I, I agree with James that that's, that's the original thing
that he was trying to do is what I, is how I would have tried to, um, solve
that, uh, solve that riddle.
Um, but I don't, you couldn't with the, you'd be imprecise.
Yeah.
So the way to do it then is, is that you fill up the five gallon, uh, jug
and you pour it into the three gallon jug.
And now you have two gallons in the five gallon jug.
Oh, and then one left.
And now.
Yeah.
Gotcha.
And so, so now it's, yeah, you just, you, you work it down.
But they've been, there's parts of this movie where like, okay,
what we got to, we're running out of time.
And you gotta put it in this one.
And we, we, we, we, we, we, we're gonna put it in this one.
There's y'all, right?
I mean, let's be real though, there are, and I just, I, I thought I kind of saw
us, I mean, all, you know, there's a lot of things in this movie that you can
really kind of point to be like, what the fuck.
But, um, no, it's okay.
No, it checks out.
I mean, there's just, they, they left that stuff just on the, you know,
out in the open, on the elephant fountain and no one was going to steal a briefcase.
I find that's right.
Sure, they're not going to pick up the trash, maybe.
I don't know.
It all checks out.
No, two working water jugs.
Him, it would have stole that first.
Him launching through a manhole out of the ground, definitely checks out as well.
Mm hmm.
Yeah, he just kicked out of him when the physics just like start to go completely
hate haywire in this movie was like, Oh, I see where things are going like later
on, because I've seen the other one where he launches a car into a helicopter.
So I'm like, I know where this escalates, but it's, it's cool to see some of the
silly, silly stuff happening.
Uh, yeah, like jumping from the bridge under the boat is something that was
just reposterous.
I don't know that played out.
Um, but yeah, I guess we should talk more a little, if you guys have anything
else to say about some of these other puzzle puzzles that they line out for them.
There's the, uh, the subway thing where he like finds the bomb in the phone thing.
Oh, well, actually I, I was going to say, what do you guys think of these bombs
with these liquids?
What do you think of that technology?
Right.
Well, I really was obsessed with the intro to that technology, which
is, uh, I can't, uh, I'd have to pull up the name of the actor, but he's
been in a couple of things, uh, him being just so cavalier about, uh, doing
a little science experiment in the office stuff.
And not okay.
He just, he just was like, guess what?
I'm going to cook them up right here and a little, a little bomb in the office.
Just throw them like not into the room that they're in, but the room right
over with everyone working.
Right.
And he's like, yeah, all right.
Well, that's my job.
Okay.
I'll see you later.
Yeah.
And then he turns out to be a hero at the end that talcum powder.
I just love the powder all over.
He's like, I can't.
Yeah, it's talcum powder, baby.
You're rubbed the sweat away.
This is my bum diffusel powder.
I use way too much.
That's what they always tell me, but that's how I like it.
I think my, my favorite part of scene with that EOD tech is that if you zoom in on the
camera and you, and you pause the movie when he's, when he's cutting the wires, he's left
all but one wire that's, that's left to cut.
And so his job seems so technical and like, while the scene is going on, you know, there's
a lot going on and he's working, you know, off camera, he is trying to diffuse the
bomb as technically as he can, but then at the tail end, the culmination is once the,
once the mixture start, start mixing in and he goes, no guts, no glory.
What did you think was going to happen?
You know, after you've got all of the different wires, I love to think that guy's like this
life on no guts, no glory because he just, he kind of seems like a Kramajan.
And so this whole no guts, no glory.
I don't know, kind of mantra of his seems like, yeah, such a fresh take on his situation
and really rising up to the occasion.
Cause yeah, he finds out that there's still kids in the building and then Charles is
going to, he's going to, he's going to stay, hang back and he's going to do this.
And yeah, I love that, that call out to you because I was thinking about this, you know,
that call out to you because I was thinking about bomb diffusel as well.
And I just could not imagine that bomb diffusel technicians are just going in there and
they're like, I got these four wires and I got to cut them in a certain sequence or
I'm fucked.
And that's how bombs work.
It's just a collection of different colored wires and you gotta, you gotta just cut the
right one, that seems crazy to me, but I mean, we don't have to nitpick too much about those
types of things.
Well, then it turns out to not even be a bomb at all.
It was syrup.
So you think he would figure that out?
I've had a certain point like, wait a minute, this isn't a bomb.
And he's like, no guts, no glory.
I don't have any.
It's like cake syrup.
It's funny how the cake syrup can look so identical to the whatever mixture that they
have in the boat bomb.
Yeah.
That boat bomb.
I mean, it's fucking silly though, too.
I do like this movie a lot, but that's the only part I was like, that was like silly.
Those bombs are silly.
Also, you know, when it starts coming down to down to the wire, they have 30 seconds left
and Bruce Willis decides, you know what, I'm going to use that science experiment that I
saw the the bomb tech do on the desk and I'm going to use it to blow up the handcuffs.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, you know, it's I just you take a crowbar to a bomb and I just I don't think it's a
it's a good idea, you know, and then to use it on such a small surface area where some
guys handcuff, you know, and you don't and you don't take a guy's hand off.
And that spark isn't going to like launch something else.
Right.
I mean, Samuel Jackson, after that was like really doing like, holy shit.
He sounded hurt.
Like, oh, God, holy shit.
Oh, man.
I love that.
Yeah.
You just like a quick little they establish already if you take a little bit of this and
a little bit of this one and then boom, little sparks will fly.
But if you do a lot of it, then then bomb.
But that was such a funny way to explain it.
And each bomb kind of looked a little different, had different screen or keyboard or whatever
and had like some cheeky little thing.
Right.
And then even once a fucking Yankee Stadium, like just for a second, I don't know.
You kind of have to appreciate that too for a New York movie.
It's like, oh, we went there.
It was only for like two seconds.
And you just like found a little game over thing.
They had some snipers there and then left.
But it's like, yeah, we saw Yankee Stadium.
Like that's absolutely that's pretty cool.
I mean, to be honest, you explore so much of New York in the movie.
You even go underground, man.
You go into the tunnel system, you know, and you start
looking at the map and you go, oh, wow, I had no idea they had an aqueduct that goes
underneath.
I'm just going to get a dissertation from that guy being like, let me tell you about
the history of the aqueducts and the tunnels in New York City.
Oh my God.
I was.
Yeah, I know who the 21st president is.
Bester A. Arthur.
Arthur.
I mean, this whole cat and mouse game going through New York City, all of this.
Yes, you can nitpick it because there's certain things that don't make sense,
but it is really just such a wild ride.
And I, yeah, there's.
I appreciate that.
Yeah, there is a lot of memorable stuff in this movie.
Yeah, it really sticks with you.
It's really, really.
I love that subway set piece a lot.
Driving the taxi around Central Park was a ton of fun and just really manic and all the
people on the streets and everything running out of the way just felt very visceral and real.
And the CG looked extremely suspect.
And when it was used, because a lot of it was just seemed like the city and everything
like like that and they were the taxi was I don't know, the stunt driving and everything was
was awesome.
That subway car careening into the station.
I thought it looked fucking awesome to the actual bomb going off when the bombs do go
off and that's how the movie starts to it looks legit.
Everything is.
I don't know.
It's like there's a there's an ugly griminess to it that fits the tone pretty well.
And then the dark humor comes across to but they get into this federal reserve thing.
We get into the you.
So you guys overall overall like Jeremy Irons Irons as a as the villain.
He's not crazy about his accent, but him in the villain role is like, how can you beat
him chewing up that scenery?
And I would argue, too, is like there's not really too much time spent on this.
Him being like this German X pad gun for hire situation for a while.
And I understand the gruber of it all, but.
Groober.
You know.
Yeah, I don't know.
I guess I for first second, I was trying to make the case of like, did we need him to have that?
You know, very.
Cartoonish German accent.
It reminds me of our past Christian.
We were playing settlers of Catan recently, and it's reminding me of him playing settlers of
Catan.
If you ever play a game with him, he turns and he turns German into a.
Oh, yeah.
And he's like, oh, yeah, would you like some wood for the sheep?
Yeah.
Would you like to see?
Yeah.
Oh, it looks like Brandon has eight.
The victory points.
So.
Which in my accent is clearly much better than German.
That's fun though.
You know what?
You're you're proving the point that, you know.
Yeah, I guess that's what I was trying to reconcile on my head there for a second.
This is that, you know, how much do I find it fun that it is a silly caricature accent?
And is that more of a positive, honestly, to the movie than it is to just be like, again,
once you start like going down the avenue of critique, like getting very critical about
this movie and in particular ways in relation to like plot point making sense and things
like that, it can fall apart and.
But man, if you do let yourself kind of not think about that as much.
It really the.
Yeah, this movie has fun with that.
Yeah, I agree.
I think it's important not to when you're when you're going into especially an 80s or 90s
action movie, if you can turn that critical thinking off or just crank it down just a
little bit down.
Yeah.
And I'm not saying turn it off completely, you know, but.
Totally.
But if you tone it down just a tiny bit, I think you could really people could really
people could really enjoy those movies and enjoy the ride more than anything.
It's not much different than a than a lethal weapon or.
Of course, which has a place.
Yeah.
Or, you know, the last action hero or a racer, you know, there's a racer.
Hell yeah.
You know, so these these are all movies that you can't overly critique or you're just not
going to have a good time watching the movie and you really you really could.
Yeah.
And so I like I like to go into that movie, you know, sit down, prop my feet up, have
my little lickies and chewies, my little snacky snacks and then and then and then
create crank down the critical thinking for a little bit, you know, for an hour.
And I found myself enjoying to this day, enjoying watch rewatching die hard with a
vengeance, you know, yeah, yeah, absolutely, man.
And you know, we made the point, I think both of us have at certain times about how
movies can be just fun and they it's for entertainment.
I brought it up in the past of like when I would talk to my dad about movies, you know,
a big thing for him was was it entertaining, you know, because if it was, then it really
kind of checks off the, you know, arguably the.
The only one that matters.
The rest is all gravy on top of that of like, is it entertaining?
But, you know, just like what we, you know, CJ, in the past, we've talked about certain,
maybe political stuff, but, you know, being critical of things, it doesn't mean that you
hate it.
So I mean, you know, when it comes to a movie like this, it is worth saying that it is more
fun when you don't think too hard about the plot point or you get more out of it.
If you don't.
Is it just, is it accomplishing what it's trying to do in a successful way?
And if you're sitting down for a meal every single time, do you want something that's
challenging and something that's going to just be in the front to your taste buds or
palate, not necessarily bad way, but be a challenge, sort of fine dining sort of experience
or something or sometimes do you want to fucking cheeseburger and a coke and some
fries or this is this is like the cheeseburger of like, of movies, I feel like of like, yeah,
man, you just, it's a cheeseburger of movies.
Put it on the poster.
Okay, hold on.
I'm going to put that down as a.
It's comfort food, you know, or like it's like comfort food of movies where like for
certain people, there's certain times other times where maybe you don't want a lot of gunshots,
explosions, all that stuff and that there's a good amount of that.
It's pretty loud at times, but the action is enticing.
It propels the plot from location to location and set piece to set piece.
It goes pretty long and the last portion of it is like action packed and then
and full to an extent that, you know, if you are worried about a plot heavy experience,
maybe, but yeah, I think it just it serves its purpose as it's as it's needed to.
And it's cool to see it of this era as well.
There's some parts of it that don't look the best or whatever, but there's other things
that I really like the look of how visceral and gritty it is as I've said, but yeah, I'm
I'm pleasantly surprised as well and I overall really, really enjoyed my experience.
I'm looking at some of my notes here before we maybe go on to some some reviews.
Oh yeah, when you find out his name is Zeus, I related with that a lot because my father had a
had a guy he worked with named Jesus as well.
And I always heard him talk to him on the phone and I always saw his name was Zeus.
And he used to be like, Hey Zeus.
Hey Zeus, you know, I just like say, Hey Zeus, I mean, I really thought the guy's name was Zeus
and took took me a while to learn that as a child that it was not the case.
Yeah, I know there's I just want to just a lot of lines.
Can I take that?
That line reading from him?
Can I try that?
Yes, is there any you need a prompt?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, essentially what you were saying is you can just say Zeus like in a question and then
I can take from there.
Zeus.
Yeah, Zeus as in father of Apollo Mount Olympus.
Don't fuck with me or I'll shove a lightning bolt up your ass.
Zeus, you got a problem with that?
There's so many good lines like the delivery of both of those guys with those kind of lines
just destroy because you see a lot of that shit just not being like delivered in a convincing way.
And you know, there's some people like maybe like the rock of end diesel and stuff in some
of the Fast and Furious like sometimes it can be I'd say maybe even more like hops and Shaw.
That's that's a little more fun like in line with this.
But yeah, like I got some of them.
Some of those like well laid planes.
Well laid plans up your well laid ass was one not even God knows what you're doing.
Right.
That line.
That's good shit.
Maybe that mine when he's driving through Central Park and he considers running over a mine.
He's got that mine hate.
The taxi radio tunes into the police radio at us when he just jumps on the taxi,
pulls the radio is like, yeah, get me, Sergeant.
Just like just talking to the taxi.
They're like, yeah, right away.
Okay.
They're all eating popcorn while looking at the explosion that just happened.
That was kind of weird.
Like all the people in the office building or whatever that that like after the explosion
the Federal Reserve, they're like eating popcorn and looking at them like clean it up.
All right, whatever.
That's just like some of those not like logic things, but just kind of weird little things
in the interstitial stuff.
You had Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both mentioned in like little one liner jokes.
That's right.
Yeah.
And I'm going to marry Donald Trump.
And then someone else says, who do you think you are?
Hillary Clinton.
This movie was really.
There's also, yeah, there's also some lines that goes like what?
Hillary Clinton, the 42nd president.
No, she'd be the 43rd president.
Right.
All right.
But who's the 22nd president?
I don't know.
You don't know.
Yeah.
And so wow, what a God.
For her to have run as president because that was a joke, right?
Like, isn't that so interesting to think about why like it like almost like fuel to
for anybody who doesn't understand like why would Hillary Clinton run, you know,
outside of just being the wife of a former president, you know, it's like, oh, she was
kind of in the zeitgeist and people were talking about her as potentially being that
at this point in time.
And it wasn't until, yeah, much later did she actually run.
But, you know, yeah.
And then they mentioned something about emails.
I don't know.
Jeremy Irons tie.
That was like a weird like ball in a string.
Yeah, it's like a ball.
It's like an apple and like a string or something.
That was a weird tie.
That kid that like they stopped who's like stealing butterfingers and stuff.
He's like, you could steal city hall.
Because the cops are doing anything.
Whatever.
And then they steal those children's bikes and get away.
Funny, which is funny.
Good stuff.
I love that bit.
They shouldn't be like clean, like good dudes.
I like that.
I don't you shouldn't be doing this and he's just lecturing him and then he steals his bike.
He's just he's just hung over the whole time and they look like shit.
They are so dirty.
The dirty dirty dirty.
But you're the whole.
They're bleeding everywhere.
I love that so much.
It's great.
And him trying to like put himself together and walking into the bank and right.
There's like a lot of like them just walking to where they like as actors are putting that
on themselves, right, like they're obviously not injured in real life.
But there's so much of them committing to where like physically those their characters would be.
That is so fun to see of like, oh, it's hurting to walk or like, oh, this getting up these stairs
is going to look like this, you know, so concerned about looking perfect.
You know, like the rock or something too.
It's like, no, you look like fucked up because you've been through a hell of a day.
And arguably that's an issue.
That's a that's a fine example of something wrong with the Fast and the Furious franchise
these days is that I would also argue too, with a lot of television in particular,
is what I would take to ask on this is like so much TV.
Everybody in it is like noticeably dressed by a stylist.
And there isn't any ever like very glossy.
This is what a normal person would probably be wearing like, well, in the I guess, like
in my mind, the issue, the fundamental issue is like, if you're trying if this per like,
OK, when you're making a movie or television, the characters that are a part are on screen,
they're inhabiting or playing a role.
And like if you're like, yeah, they're this type of person, but they're also going to be dressed
like they're on a fucking television show.
It just it always takes me out of it.
And so yeah, I really look like an iconic kind of character or something.
It's like so so put together.
Yeah.
Really look like so manicured, but I think it's a superhero superhero thing of it all too.
Just like making them look like they have like a costume like.
Right.
You know, James, to your point, they continually get dirtier, right?
And more injured throughout throughout the film.
And it kind of culminates all the way to the boat scene, right?
And and Samuel Jackson confronts Jeremy Irons, right?
And that's when he can't, you know, use the gun because the safety's on.
I don't know if you guys remember, but the the noise or yelp that Samuel Jackson does
when he gets shot in the leg is pretty damn realistic.
I thought as far as fake Hollywood, you know, injuries go.
And the the same then Bruce Willis joined some later on in the.
There on the on the ship and he's laying there on the ground because he thinks the bomb is has gone off or he's finally starting to put two and two together that there's that there wasn't ever a bomb.
But when they get him up, he also yelps, you know, because, you know, it's almost like it's finally caught up that, you know, for the last 10 hours, he's been blown up.
He's been, you know, he jumped off the bridge, you know, and I love the, the, you know, they're acting there.
It really seemed that they were like, oh man, the endorphins, all everything, the adrenaline, everything is worn off and now I am fucked up.
And that seems to be like, I love that.
That's what they took from the original diehard of like rather than the trademark of like single location traps sort of thing.
Like, no, main character, McClain's going to get fucking fucked up like thrown through the woodchipper.
Yeah, he's going to have to step on glass or whatever.
And he's going to like have a have a bad time.
His arm is just covered in blood.
And he smacked the bottle on his head and then he just like grabs water that's coming from the ceiling and just washing his face off like that.
I mean, yeah, Samuel L is sitting on the curb or whatever near the exploding having, having exploded helicopter and he's got like blood like just still all over his face.
You know, yeah, like after getting stabbed at the beginning of the movie, you don't really ever see him go to paramedics.
No, and they just put some pressure on it.
Nobody stays with that. Yeah, because I mean, I think that's the thing that you just is why you forfeit or what you forfeit in order for ease.
Essentially, like just, I don't know, like a condomization of action movies where it is so much easier for everybody in the movie to be dressed a certain way and to just stay that way.
So then we don't have to worry so much about this, you know, adding and making sure all of these things stay the continuity stays true.
And you got to just give a movie like this credit for it because it really it progresses and it like it makes me think of.
Somebody told me that they went to the movie theaters around the time that Sky Scraper came out that Dwayne The Rock Johnson movie.
And it was like at the place in LA at one of the theaters in LA, they had his white T shirt through like the stages of the movie.
Yeah. And it's like progressively more tattered and discolored and all of that.
And it's honestly, man, I just think that this is a part of that I'm talking about being genuinely loving things like the tattered shirt, you know, of even though I don't like Sky Scraper.
But like, you know, a movie going to those pains and lengths to put their main character through all these things, which then kind of get piled up on top of them.
So just kind of similarly to a video game or a superhero or like a, you know, like a Japanese swordsman story, like.
As certain things happen, it gets attached to the character. So then by the end of the movie or the end of the story, they just like have the coolest weapons.
But they're also like their clothes are different. And it's just like such a like here is this final iteration of this character.
And so it is a physical representation of character development.
A boon almost like. Yes. Right. Journey and getting a boon. Getting some type of new ability or whatever.
It's kind of what I'm thinking about in a video game. And.
Yeah, you just don't see that anymore in this movie. And then also too broad.
Broadly, I just I want to make a simple point of I love how much physical.
Like real tangible non CGI stuff that happened in this movie when it came to like, you know, the the subway.
Crashing through the platform and all of that stuff is like.
Big time. So so sick. A lot of the stuff of like drilling and taking the gold and all of that stuff.
I loved it. And then driving through the park. Yeah, there's just there's literally a this movie is a laundry list of.
Of action sequences. It's just the water, the water coming through the tunnel and launching them through the manhole cover was the only time you're like, oh.
Oh, yeah. But they when they show it full front, not good. But when they do the rear of your mirror, like, oh, that's nice.
But they're launching them through and then him Samuel Jackson driving by. That was just that was that was funny.
And then jumping off of the with the wire onto the boat.
That's coming from the truck that like is taught a taught wire at first.
But then the truck starts to drag and fall and then they fall.
And then it slices a dude in half and they land on the boat and have to drag that the shot of them dragging.
You want legs or the arms or the dragging different sides. That was pretty grim for a die hard movie.
But but the dark humor, I think works on me.
And I just some of that stuff is when the CG starts to rear its ugly head a bit.
But for the most part, this it is very yeah, in your face. I agree.
And I was just looking at one last comment about the CGI is that CGI was used for the
the sign that he's wearing in the beginning of the movie. Did you guys know that the sign
that he's the sandwich sign is what they call it. So he didn't actually have to go and
it had nothing on it that was CGI added in. I didn't know. Yeah.
Yeah. So they really put whatever they wanted on there.
Exactly, which was very helpful later commented on it, which was very helpful for making this a TV movie.
Oh, you could change it. You could change the words for whatever.
Not not like it. I wonder what it was on the ton of times.
But, you know, TV is a movie is wrapped or broken up by advertising, you know.
And so there is a little bit of I want to say it seemed like there was like a couple edits and versions
that ran on TV or when this ran on TV, it had like some culmination of.
God, what was one example of because obviously they didn't say the N word. God, it was like.
It's like I think it's just as generic as like kill everybody.
I hate everything. Yeah, like I'm not happy. People.
So just a sad face. Yeah. Hey, man, what's your problem? You're not happy with life.
Life is great. I'll just see a couple more lines. Oh, the oh, hey, fuckhead, you got any aspirin?
I was really concerned. It is a point. Yeah, right. Exactly.
Because the lid of it, man, I was so concerned with how much aspirin he was taking, though.
I mean, you got to do what you got to do. He's in so much pain.
There was a point where he had kind of his hand out and he was and somebody was like
dumping just like a bunch in his hand. And I'm like, I think he has had probably like eight
aspirin today. And that is like really, you know, oh, it was I hate everybody was what the
sign read one time. Really? I hate everybody. That's so.
Bring back the N word.
Yeah, Brandon, that's my problem. Thanks for.
For a second there is like, OK, yeah, well, would you like it to be?
If you were to if you were to see somebody with that sign in the street, like you think
a lot of people would approach them wanting to beat them up, like to instill a sense of wanting to
beat this guy up, like there's I don't know, finding something that is a little bit more
instigating somebody. Right. My only point, Brandon, but no. Yeah,
put those fucking words in my mouth. You piece of fucking shit.
Anyways, we're going to do reviews next. We'll be right back. Bye. I'm trying to think what would
be more instigating. I don't know. But something as generic as I hate everyone, you would almost
relate to them more than instigate. You'd be like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get what you mean, you know.
Yeah, I'm just trying to think it'd be like I hate New Yorkers, maybe. Yeah, you do that.
You go that route. Yeah, it's tough. But I'm certainly smart on the studios to make that part.
CGI man, because you have to have the foresight to say this is going to go to TV, you know,
at some point. So what can we do that can be edited to be able to be shown to
the masses eventually? Yeah, right. Yeah, but I mean, to his point is like,
yeah, could you imagine somebody like pulling a gun on somebody for saying?
Yeah, I hate everybody. I mean, I think the movie does
have that moment where he's like, pretend to be crazy, pretend to be an escapee from
Bellevue, I think. Right. Yeah. And I think that was more Samuel Jackson's idea, you know,
last ditch effort to, you know, to, you know, dissuade the gang bangers from from beating them up.
But but I think I think it played well because, you know, the scene opened up, you know, before that
to Samuel Jackson and, you know, you know, educating his his nephews or in what have you. So I think
that the culture war aspect, you know, and the racial undertones really played into that scene
and build and building it up and doing it in Harlem of all places, you know, for sure. And so
and and so and, you know, you get a slight glimpse into, you know, the cynical mind of Simon, right,
and and and making, you know, trying to make him suffer as much as possible. What can we do? Oh,
yeah, let's let's put a let's put him in the middle of Harlem, you know, in a traditionally
black neighborhood and have this, you know, this, you know, racist sign on that's really going to
punish, you know, McClain's, McClean's character. So ultimately, I really enjoyed that scene.
You know, and it was it was gritty and real and something that I think, you know, New Yorkers could,
you know, could really relate to, you know, especially especially folks from, you know,
really rough socioeconomic places, you know, around New York. Yeah. And I just I think too,
like that whole scene works really well to do that whole dynamic of like,
you don't get the sense that Bruce Willis believes these things. He's just doing it because of
Simon is telling him to and there is such a quick like turn and interaction where even
though what it says on the sign is what it says, like he diffuses that with Samuel L Jackson
relatively well. And it just it I mean, it does set the pace for, you know, they're every God,
so much of their conversations and back and forth are like, you have a problem with me being a white
guy, you have a problem with me being a black guy. And then like, but it always, yeah, I don't know,
it's it's such an interesting like tone that is representative of that time where
yeah, it's just it's ball busting, but it's also like racial stuff and
yeah, I don't know, it's like, it just it now starts to seem more just more representative of
that time. And it's interesting to kind of like, but I think there's also, you know, maybe, maybe
even a lesson hidden, you know, way, way deep in the plot because at the at the tail end of this,
you have Samuel L Jackson and Bruce Willis arguing nonstop throughout the entire film,
yelling at each other, you know, busting balls, even even in a in a racial undertone kind of way.
But then what do you get at the end? You get Samuel L Jackson saying, goddamn it, McLean,
I was just starting to like you, man, when he thinks that they were going to die. And so
it's so cool to see them overcome all that stuff, you know, and at the end almost become friends,
you know, through all that stuff. Sure. And like, they become friends. Yeah, I don't know,
seemingly like quickly and easily. And again, so much of it too is like, I don't know, yeah,
I think both of them respect each other and express it enough to each other that it is understood.
And yeah, them becoming such fast friends just makes it so much more enjoyable, right? Because
yeah, they're not really too much at odds with each other. They just are like, I think it's this
way, I think it's that way. And then they get to the best, like, I don't know, they kind of work it
out and get to the best answer quickly. There's not a lot of like, yeah, I don't know, goes to the
where the bureaucracy and the whole overarching like system of cops is as well of like, you don't
necessarily want them to be against McClain a lot. Like if you really thought about it, sure,
it would be more dynamic or be more realistic. But do you want a whole part of this movie that
people are just like, you can't do this McClain, you know, stop doing this, we're going to prevent
you from doing this. And instead, you know, it's like the scene where all the cops and stuff are
talking about what the strategy is for the cop for like, figuring out or disarming the bomb
at the schools and everybody kind of just gets on board real quickly to solve that problem.
And yeah, I mean, you could spend time doing this whole, you know, your department thinks this and
and yada, yada, yada, or like, are we going to just trust that McClain knows what he's talking
about. But instead, they're like, we're gonna, we're gonna be on board, we're gonna go along with
it. He gets that he's our best man out there. Just make some more of such a superhero.
Right. You know, something that I thought about today, as I was watching the tail end of the
of the movie, was how many similarities the movie had with lethal weapon. Specifically,
Bruce Willis's character and Mel Gibson's character in in the original lethal weapon,
where you have this kind of disgruntled, disheveled cop, you know, city cop. So he's not,
he's not a state police. He's not a federal law enforcement officer. He's a gritty kind of
detective, where he's got problems at home. You know, he's, he's an, he's an alcoholic,
not more maybe not alcoholic, but he drinks too much, maybe smokes, smokes too much.
He's got issues with it with his boss. And then in early on in the movie, you see how
they bring in a psychologist to kind of understand what's going on in in Simon's mind,
where you they do the same thing in lethal weapon, where you have a back and forth between Mel
Gibson's character and, and the quote unquote shrink, you know, and, and you get this the same
thing with Mel Gibson, I'm sorry, with Bruce Willis, mouth, mouthing off at the psychologist
here going like, well, yeah, that's all well and good dog. What the fuck does this have to do with
me? You know, and so, so I, I, I like seeing those, those parallels and they certainly played, but
there was a lot of similarities between lethal weapon and, and diehard with the vengeance.
I don't know if you guys knew this, but it looks like this when the script was written, it was,
it was really meant to be a standalone movie until it was bought out by another studio and,
and they ultimately decided to, you know, to adapt it to the diehard series. And, and who
did they want to play Samuel Jackson's character? Lawrence Fishburn. How about that Morpheus himself?
I could totally see that and that makes a lot of sense, then just wanting to
couple it into some, some franchise and, and tag that, that name onto it. And it would explain,
I don't know, Bruce Willis's attitude towards this, maybe to just kind of being maybe a little
blasé about the whole process. And it just not really coming from a, from a place of
anything that's trademarked diehard and some of the little flourishes on top are a little fan
servicey, but never really take you out of it. And I think that's why it was successful with me,
because it didn't feel like it had to be some bastardized version of some original thing that
would never be as good as the original. The fact that you're telling me that it is in its own
original story makes a lot more sense and bodes well for the movie in a funny kind of way,
because diehard doesn't really mean anything. It really is just John McClain as a character
and Bruce Willis and his attitude as an actor in these movies that really pushes it forward as a
franchise. If you don't have that, then you don't have a diehard movie. So just trying to
again, circle around like what those trademarks are of what the, whatever this franchise is,
I think he is such a, yeah, he is the franchise. He's such an integral part. You could really
ascribe so many different things to the action movie that it's put in, because this one itself
seems to be instead of a spin off of diehard, like you're saying CJ, it seems to be more of a
spin off of what was popular at the time, which was lethal weapon. In my mind, but who knows.
Yeah. And then just having New York be such a big part of it and having him out and about and
and and shutting around and stuff is definitely a different spin on it.
Yeah. It's curious to me that, you know, this obviously got a great reaction from from audiences,
you know, around the States and worldwide. States, not as much as worldwide.
Right. Right. Right. But even, even still took from 1995 all the way to 2007 for
the fourth diehard movie to come out. And it's curious when you look at lethal weapons projection,
where like every two to three years, they were coming out lethal weapon one, two, three, four,
I mean, in four, culminating with the likes of Jet Lee and all of these, all of these big,
you know, big movie stars at the time. But you didn't see that with lethal weapon four. You
know, you had this prolonged period of time between 1995 and 2007, 12 years. And then when it came out,
it was a little bit of a flop. And there wasn't any, any big names tied to live for your diehard.
I think it was, it was called. Is that the Timothy Oliphant? Is that who's in that? And like Justin
Long and stuff. Maybe that's the one after him. That's the one. That's the one I've seen.
So where he launches that car into the chopper. Yeah. It's like, right, live free and die hard.
Live for your die hard, possibly. Yeah. And then it's like, it's more like, it's like hacker,
like I think the villain is like, a lot of what should be in the tech in the tech world sort of
thing of like hacking shit. And he's got to fight against them like hacking, hacking the city and
stuff. It's been a while. I feel like Justin Long's involved in it too. Yes. Yeah. You're right.
Justin Long and Timothy Oliphant live for your die hard. Man, it's really just as long as like
dating a daughter or some shit. Right. Uh huh. Man, cyberterrorism. I cyberterrorism
is not that interesting to me in film form, you know, and has never been something I don't know.
I especially because I think it was more. Yeah, tool fucking dead, dead reckoning, baby. Hey,
come on. Okay. Can we do have a little dead wreck? Side tangent. CJ, have you seen
this impossible dead reckoning? Okay. Well, we should wait till you see it. We shouldn't get
them into it. The way that tech is used in that movie brings it brings cyberterrorism back in a
big way in a big way. It's one of the most perfect action movies. Uh, yeah, I don't want to. I'm so
excited. I think they heard they took off part one from it or something. So maybe they'll name
the second one something different, but I hope so. Very excited for that. Do you guys? Sorry,
that's the that's the most recent mission impossible. Yeah. Yeah, I have. It just took me
looking it up, but man, that train scene at the end, right? Right. Yeah, that one was gripping.
So good. And the what ends up being the villain in that movie too is something that is, uh,
this is, you know, maybe till Timothy Aliphon was a precursor to what's what's going on in
in Dead Rack. I'm sure that Timothy Aliphon's character would love it. What's going on there?
Uh, you guys want to hear about what critics have to say about this movie? Yeah, they gave it a 59
average percent, uh, Barbara Creed from the age in Australia is a top critic on our tomatoes. And
she says, if you're an action fan, you will love diehard with the vengeance. All you need is a
strong stomach and a penchant for masochism. If you can enter the pain threshold, you won't mind
the glaring plot inconsistencies, woeful stereotyping and banal story. Uh, from Gene Siskel at Chicago
Tribune. Watching diehard three is like moving along a conveyor belt with shocks applying to
your brain every 10 minutes. It wore me out. And this is from a critic who actually put diehard two
on his 10 best list five years ago. Just a review. Richard Corlis from Time magazine says some movies
ought to be reviewed not by critics, but by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Not really sure why, but they should. Wow. Maybe one or two more from Brian Lowry of Variety
degenerate degenerates into an improbable confusing series of chases and an overly
involved heist that takes far too long to set up. Dominic Wells at Time Out. There's little
wit or originality on offer. Just the familiar escalation of car chases and big bangs.
Big bad bangs. Let's check out some audience feelings in the five star kind of range.
They gave it an 83 on rotten tomatoes. A. J. Taylor says the original diehard is, oh,
this one's a little, no, I don't want to do that one's a little too long. Let's do this one
from the nightmare. This person calls themselves the nightmare five stars true masterpiece. Diehard
with the vengeance lived up to my expectations. It's a fabulous movie. The second part wasn't my
favorite favorite, but the third is gorgeous. Good villain, great music, good plot, fabulous cast,
as much action as you want. The movie is amazing. Bruce Willis and Samuel Jackson have a great
chemistry. They do a great job together. Two of the best actors. One phase that I really liked
was the subject of racism. The film highlighted this thing. Several films should do this because
we are all the same regardless of color. He may not have maintained racism at all, but I adore
that he did. I respect that. The story is beautiful. And I love the fact that it's not about revenge.
John McCain with the help of Zeus Carver, a local shop owner must find out the solutions to stop Simon,
the formal Colonel brother of Hans Gruber, who John killed. Simon threatens that if they don't find
the solutions, you will detonate a bomb in public areas until the two find out the real plan.
Simon Gruber is a good villain. You are easily attached to him, as his brother is calm and
calculated. Jeremy Irons offers superior super performance. A very talented actor and one of
my favorites. Yeah, I agree. I agree with that. Jeremy Irons, man. Yeah, he's great villain.
From Tella titled, there are only two Diehard movies really worth watching. Five stars.
The original, of course, and this movie. Sure, it's a bit over the top, but so is the original.
Probably the only Samuel L. Jackson movie that he does a great job in. He's much better as a
serious actor than in movies where he's supposed to be humorous. That's pretty el take right there.
There are lots of great lines in this movie, although the casual watcher is probably not
going to catch them. The movie has no forced humor, unlike every other movie you see these days,
looking at you, Star Wars and Avengers. There is one scene that is a bit too gory,
and I always skip over it, but it only lasts 10 seconds. Otherwise, it's a normal Diehard style
violence. That is to say, there's a lot of graphic violence. I highly doubt Hollywood can make a
movie this good these days. They wouldn't be able to figure out how the Harlem scene without watering
it down and said they would show tons of male nudity, nothing offensive and jokes thrown in every
minute. This is a more realistic view of what humans are really like. John is practically an
alcoholic that has a hard time making his boss and wife happy. I think your projection buddy,
but he comes through when needed, even though he didn't have to. He's an alcoholic, right?
This is real life. Zeus is a hardworking guy with deeply seated racial issues that he puts
aside to save the city. Everybody's focusing on the race stuff. The action sequences are mostly
very well done. I imagine it was a ton. It was ton of work to coordinate with all the different
filming locations to complete the scenes. It was also probably very hard to cast so many tall Germans
or Eastern Europeans. The aqueduct filming, the trucks, the subway, the sets built, the helicopters,
the bridge, the ship, etc. Just tons of coordination and hard work. The kind of effort put into this
movie would be too much for a modern film studio. They would just put their budget into CGI instead.
This movie is 27 years old and holds up better than any modern movie. Even the original holds up
better and that's even older. I like old things. Old guys are cool. I'll do one more from the
audience here from Mancub's mom. Five stars titled has all the magic of the first. I'm a huge fan
of the diehard series, not so much the second, but even it merits a look. It's safe to say that
if you see John McClain in a building, airplane or telephone booth, maybe even a donut shop,
you better run like heck because said structure will be blown up or at least riddled with bullets
within seconds. Bruce Willis is the ultimate everyday hero with flaws and a biting sense of
humor as he is raised from the bottom of the bottle he has drowned himself in to battle again with
an uber-terrorist bent on worldly domination. Played deliciously by the always entertaining
Jeremy Irons who I feel play some of the best bad guys in the business. Sounds too much like the
first? Heck no because there is a high octane, adrenaline packed sidekick in the form Samuel
L. Jackson that's Zeus, not Hey Zeus, who provides amusement in the form of his one-line zingers,
yet still able to open up a can of self-righteous whoop bass on the enemy. It's a virtual feast
for the senses with dazzling special effects, a great soundtrack and fast-paced dialogue.
What else would you expect from razor-witted Bruce? The characters are rich, multi-dimensional
beings whom you can empathize with or wonder how to pray if they truly can be. It's definitely a
film that you can watch over and over seeing something new each time you do so. Hmmmmmm.
That's a little audience tasting. I think yeah there's uh some people that love
an action movie with Bruce Willis and this was proven with all the geezer-pleasers that he did
post die-hard uh franchise and I think there's gonna be a lot of love coming out for uh his
movies at this time um but as we will find out in the reviews I think some some of us will be coming
out as well for this movie in particular because I think this is when he's at such like a kind of
nice peak of his career in a lot of ways and he's able to like affect those little in-between
moments like even when he is he laughing like a fucking maniac after getting up from a subway
that's just been blown up and he just see in the rubble him being like hahahaha ah it's like I don't
know you're still just like wow there's something wrong with him but I'm I'm having a I'm having
a good time there's something that having these kind of action heroes in the 90s that there is
something so a little off and just more rough around the edges and not perfectly uh morally
correct in in some ways is uh appealing and makes you uh have a have a better time knowing that
you're not with somebody that's going to take you through a nice safe sort of adventure it's like
some shit might get a little fucked up along the way and you know what are you gonna do about it
they're fucking hungover you know uh but as far as like why people who disagreed on this you know
I don't know sequels of action movies critics are gonna you know hate a lot of those and it seems to
still be uh pumping the steam for the audience side to things uh at this point though I'd like to hear
what we have to say and and hear some scores from us so CJ if you want to give a final any final
flats uh about how you feel about the movie and then a score from zero one zero two one hundred
zero being ratten 100 being afresh yeah I I think ultimately they nailed die hard with the vengeance
due to it's like ability to uh anybody can can relate to the protagonist he is not this
aesthetically pleasing especially not by today's standard he is this very rough looking he's got
marital problems he's got marital problems he's got uh potential financial problems he's definitely
got problems at at work he doesn't dress well he doesn't he's not polished he doesn't speak well
um but yet he is able to essentially save you know New York City uh you know avengers style
against this um against this mercenary slash terrorist slash madman um while uh while still
taking the viewer uh through this cultural war um racist you know uh you know kind of
bridge the gap between law enforcement and you know the black community at at time so um it's a
it's a little bit of everything it's it's visually pleasing it's uh it's got great comical breaks um
and if you watch it these days and if you grew up in the 90s it is just jam packed with nostalgia
um where you can see how you know how gritty and um New York City was you know back back in those
days and and I just love that and I love being able to to kind of put that on and and uh you
know get sent in a time capsule back to back to what it was in in in the 90s when we grew up right
um so I just I love it for that I'll I'll always love it for that uh I think it's uh a solid um
72 out of out of 100 beautiful man beautiful love that uh brandy you want to go oh I'm
I'm the James Deanie sure I'll go I'm I'm stealing your uh your surname
Mr. Deanie right this way Deanie was my father Deanie party of three
party of three I don't that reminds me the time you me and your father went to it was like black
Angus or something and they like the host came out and looked at us three and were like party of six
we're like what dad says I was like what the fuck we're like no there's three of us there's no one
else in the waiting room you're like no we're like how big of guys are you think we are
I'm sorry you just eat you count us two yeah I didn't know um but yeah so this this movie was a
pleasant surprise I had no real idea of what kind of expectations I should have going into it um I
wasn't even sure exactly what number in the series it was if it was like two or three or four um
um yeah I love that it was its own thing and knowing that it technically was an original
screenplay or ever probably without the die hard name makes a lot of sense then retrofitting it in
worked somehow and uh I think that has a lot to do with the magnetic chemistry of Bruce Willis
and Samuel Jackson um how this movie was shot was uh a fun way to watch an action movie for the most
part some of it got a little little heinous there uh in the in the frenetic filmmaking but for the most
part I thought it brought me into the momentum and the urgency of the characters and the story
um and I like how the story morphed from the beginning to the end I was a little worried
halfway through like how much time is left for this little game to be played out and learning
about the Federal Reserve and all the gold and and everything and getting on to the the boat and
the helicopter fight was very memorable as an action movie due to fun action set pieces mixed
with great comedic one liners and uh of an awesome kickass villain that uh fills the movie to the
brim with a lot of reasons to to love it I would say uh criticisms yeah maybe maybe still a little
too long I think they could have tightened it up just just a bit and I think that's a natural sort of
uh byproduct of being a sequel uh to a Necland action movie already and some of the dodgy CG I
think namely the water and launching him out of the manhole and uh jumping onto the boat even though
when I think about it like as it was happening I'm like this is preposterous but I think if I
were to watch it again which I think I will like see I'm like oh this is the part where they jump
onto the boat and then the dude gets sliced in half watch this like I don't know now I'm just primed
for it and I'm I'm excited to to revisit it I think so this is this is solid a solid action
movie I think I will go back and maybe visit the second one just to uh fill out my my feelings of
it but I would recommend this in the vein of an action movie not necessarily just a diehard movie
and figuring out uh throughout this discussion of what those trademarks are I'm glad that this one
branched out in the way that it did into like a buddy cop sort of thing uh as well as doing a good
job of doing an action movie in New York and showing the city in a lot of ways so yeah I'm
right there with you I'll I'll do fucking I'll do 76 I'm like right there with you I think I think
it's very very positive uh score out of me in terms of uh enjoyability and I would recommend it for
for the most part to to action movie lovers well said yeah amazing um yeah I mean gentlemen we're
we're not far off uh here because I think all of us can understand uh some of the more stereotypical
um you know what would it what would it be it would be it um being egregious in particular
ways be it um the like the plot or um I don't know how much time it spends on certain things
anyways um I just I think all of us can understand that this movie is really fun when you just look
at this as a movie an action movie um you're going into the theater to be thrilled you're
sitting down to watch a movie to have a good time and this movie delivers on it I just I was
really blown away by how much I enjoyed the dynamic between Bruce Willis and Samuel L Jackson
that really carries almost the entire movie for me yeah I think it's uh worth just scouting from
the hilltops of like if you want to see really really fun uh rep heart between your two main
characters in a movie um go see diehard with a vengeance um there's a lot of fantastic uh
like actual set pieces like real in real world stuff special effects that makes uh you know kind of
makes me long for movies made differently um than a lot of content that is made today
and that can also be said about a bunch of other things um I don't know go see this movie
um it's not the um yeah there are certain things wrong with it and I can recognize that but um by
and large I think it is a pretty good time and I would suggest um people go see it so I'm going to
be a 78 is how I'm feeling on on this movie that's where I'm at um excellent I was going to see in
the 80s but I 78 is where I arrived it could definitely yeah I mean on a good day I would I
would agree with you too I don't know it's it's definitely worth worth that like it goes 70 80
range for sure I don't know it's easier yeah it's arbitrary at that point because these these numbers
I don't know it's hard to quantify a movie like this this is an experience people you just gotta
you gotta run out to your local video run out to yeah give me diehard with a vengeance I want to die
hard uh this has been a lot of fun going through a silly action movie uh with with my buds CJ this
was a true pleasure I hope you've enjoyed your first uh podcast experience and I hope it won't be
your last and I hope we get to have you back for for another one it doesn't have to be an action
movie could be anything you want but if you want to be action movie expert you're more than welcome
to the position is open but is there anything else that you wanted to share before we say our uh
uh adieu's you know um yeah I think there's a good reason that the diehard series has the cult
following that that it does um and uh it's it's so interesting to me how so many of the specifically
the the 90s cult classics have very polarizing scores a lot of times you know um and so um you
know I enjoy most that these films are being rewatched by Gen Z and the follow-on generations and
just very very briefly on on I was scrolling through my stories over the weekend and it's it
just so happened that there's this very very young fitness influencer that I follow who was traveling
for work uh was in their hotel room just scanning through the old hotel channels as as one does when
you're traveling right and uh and they were live streaming on their story saying there's this awesome
movie about this guy I don't know I don't know the name of the of the movie but he seems to be in a
hotel or some kind of business center and he's fighting terrorists I think but I'm glued to the
TV she says um and I cannot stop watching um and uh sure enough some some guy saw Hans Gruber's face
you know and was like I would do not know that that is diehard but that is that is something
that we have to come to terms with it so many you know so many of our uh younger colleagues don't
um you know I haven't seen these movies or haven't had the the pleasure of experiencing some of these
uh cult classics if we could even call them cult classics but um uh and so that's that's um my favorite
part is introducing to folks whether they're our age or younger that haven't necessarily seen some of
these um integral films that at least for me and my childhood were were so critical um to my love
of action movies um so I would more than anything love to fill that spot if there's a vacancy for a
action action movie subject matter action with you'll be ambassador john this but Danny covers a lot of
Danny wears a lot of hats but uh Danny does wear a lot of hats he can pass pass one of those hats
along every every now and then and I agree with you that like even if they stumble across this movie
in the hotel and never even seen the first one or second one they could enjoy this absolutely
as a standalone and even if you had no idea who john mclean was you would be interested after this
who's this my plane guy man he's people seem to mean to claim yeah I really have have a certain
reverence for for him um and he even has a little Santa Claus joke or something in this movie which
does will uh continue on the the idea that these are Christmas movies um again thank you so much
cj and yeah great great points and I think that uh we'll we'll get to a lot of other fun fun action
stuff in the in the future for next time though we will be turning our heads towards as rotten tomato
describes this genre as kids and family slash fantasy from 2005 it's charlie in the chocolate
factory a tim Burton film starring johnny depth uh don't know if you've heard of any of those names
or uh this remake of a classic film it is an 83 certified fresh movie by the critics on rotten
tomatoes it is a stinky stinky pew pew 51 by the audience it is a critically revered movie and we
will be discussing it surely next time uh we've we're going through an interesting little collection
here I think we did mona lisa last mona lisa smile last time we're doing uh the hard-with-the-venge
into charlie in the chocolate factory these are all very different movies and that makes me fun to
very be a part of this podcast with you brandini and it's been yeah me too man enjoy as always
james jenny that's me forever guys and uh we hope you guys have enjoyed yourselves as well if you
want to watch us do this live we're occasionally on twitch.tv slash polarized pod streaming live
if you want to send us a line at uh gmail you can do uh polarized the pod at gmail.com uh we love
you all and we'll uh we'll see you next time bye bye bye bye