58 minuti per morire - Die Harder

Bruce Willis takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin', nearly outdoing himself in one of the great actioneers of our time. DIE HARD 2 has everything a true action fan could ever want: explosions, chases, plot twists, suspense, drama and all that other good stuff.

Just two years after his last near-death adventure, John McClane (what a great action hero name) battles bad guys who take over an airport's communication system around the holidays. Unless their demands are met, they will unceremoniously plummet planes to the ground one by one -- including one on which Mrs. McClane (Bonnie Bedelia) is a passenger. Of course Johnny, he of wise-cracking ways, is the only one who can save the day.

Like its predecessor, set almost entirely in a skyscraper, DIE HARD 2 makes the most out of its setting. McClane is as multi-purpose as can be, chasing mercenaries through luggage conveyors, grasping onto aircraft wings, running out onto the runway and, in a truly awesome scene, ejecting from a plane a split second before it bursts into flames. Throw in a snowmobile chase, the standard trip through the air ducts and a legitimate, interesting motivation for the crooks and you have a total thrill ride guaranteed to recharge your batteries.

Efforts like DIE HARD 2 won't win any major awards, but they'll do what films are supposed to do: thrust us into another world and entertain us. This is truly Willis and director Renny Harlin at their best.

John McClane is in Washington to meet his wife as she arrives at the airport. However as he waits for her plane to come in terrorists seize control of the control equipment and keep the planes circling. They plan to rescue captured dictator General Esperanza by landing his plane at the airport and making their escape. However as the terrorists wait the circling planes get shorter and shorter on fuel, leading John McClane to take what action he can to regain control of the planes.

This second of the exciting die hard series has a hard act to follow. The first film was amazing and broke the mould relating to action films, it showed that action could occur in everyday locations, caused English actors to get lots of work as bad guys and set many other copycat films in motion (die hard on a mountain, die hard on a bus etc). However this is nothing special. The plot tries to be similar to the original but it lacks as much originality as the first. The terrorist plot is not quite as likely and it doesn't have the same flow as the first. Story-wise the main flaw is in McClane's involvement - in the first film he was very much trapped and forced to take action, in fact his first instinct was to run away from the terrorists. Here the same is not true, Willis tries to make it seem that he doesn't want all this again ("how can the same **** happen to the same guy") but really he throws himself into the thick of the battle. This takes away from the image of him as an ordinary guy put into a difficult situation.

The action scenes don't help this problem. Yes all the action scenes are good and exciting, but many of them are too big. In the first the action occurred in short standoffs, usually with McClane running away or sneaking around. Here there's too many of one man v's the world style action with Willis running in against a large number of terrorists and winning. Again this takes away from the tension and claustrophobia of the other film and makes it feel like a Arnie blockbuster. That said the action is still good and won't disappoint action fans.

The main failing of the film is that it tries to be like the first film without success. It retains the same set-up (McClane trying to rescue his wife from terrorists), brings back the same Christmas time setting and music, it even wheels back in as many repeat characters as it can (Veljohnson as Sergeant Powell, Atherton as Thornburg) but it loses the most important item - the set parameters of the action. Die Hard was great because it had very tightly set locations for it's action in the office block. Here the action can spread out all over so a lot of the tension and claustrophobia is lost. The decision to make the second film so similar to the first can only lead us to comparing the two and seeing the inferiorities.

The performances are quite good generally. Willis can almost do this type of thing in his sleep while the other repeat characters simply redo their roles. Unfortunately many of the repeat characters don't have much to do and seem out of place. The 'new' characters fill the stereotyped shoes of previous actors. Dennis Franz takes on the mantle of incompetent cop standing in McClane's way by going by the book, Sheila McCarthy takes on the story hungry journalist role etc. The bad guys do have a lot to live up to by replacing Alan Rickman and they don't quite reach that standard. William Sadler is good as Colonel Stuart but doesn't have any style of his own, anyway it's good to see Franco Nero (cult star of western Django) in an American film.

The film has some nice twists towards the end but it just doesn't come close to the atmosphere of the first film. By trying to be similar to the first film, Renny Harlin shows that he's not as capable as McTiernan in creating a mood of tension mixed with the action. The result is a great action movie but one that cowers in the shadow of it's better bigger brother.

I was expecting the worse when I saw this film, but this movie seemed to escape the curse of the cheesy sequel. Just as action packed and enthralling as the original, the wit displayed in this film saved it from being a mediocre follow-up. Bruce Willis was once again a great hero, showing how little being considered a hero means to him. A good film with a great plot twist, this is one of those action films which is just as good as the original.

I have watched many movies where they have had a sequel which left me disappointed and uneasy, but the sequel to the smash, Die Hard, Die Hard 2 (Die Harder) was what think a sequel should be - more of what made the first film so successful. So it‘s all out war for unlucky Police Detective named McClane, in a heart-stopping, jet-propelled journey through excitement and terror.

On a snowy Christmas Eve in the nation's capital, a team of terrorist have seized a major international airport, and now holds thousands of holiday travellers hostage. The terrorists, a renegade band of crack military commandos led by murderous rogue officer, have come to rescue a drug lord from justice. They've prepared for every contingency, except one: John McClane, an off-duty cop seized by a feeling of deadly deja vu. The heroic cop not only has to battle terrorists, but also an incompetent airport police chief, the hard headed commander of the army's anti-terrorist squad and a deadly winter snowstorm. The runways are littered with death and destruction, and McClane is in a race against time. His wife is trapped on one of the planes circling somewhere overhead, desperately low on fuel!

Die Hard 2 makes Bruce Willis look better and better. The role of John McClane is one filled with the fight for right and to trying to stop the bad guys. Again a lot of the stunts would have been done by Willis considering the professionalism of the man. Running all over an airport in a fierce snowstorm, fighting scenes on the wing of a real 747 jet and trying to save lives he has no attachment to, L.A. cop John McClane puts his body on the line, so justice is served and so did the actor Bruce Willis in my view to bring a great action movie back for a second time. Willis is one of my favourite actors, but I have only started to watch his movies in about the last 2-3 years and what a mistake that has been.

This film has more freedom as it is held at an airport. McClane is like I have said all over the place. The freedom and space this story has makes this film much easier to watch. Another thing which is impressive about Die Hard 2 is the effort to put more thrills in the movie. The snow (which of course is man made) has a major role, so do all the planes making quite a crisis on their hands. Not only do they fight on the wing of a 747, but also fly a real helicopter on the wing of the plane also. The scene where McClane ejects himself from the exploding plane is another favourite scene of mine. Other parts of this movie which stunned me I wont tell you about as it will give too much away, but trust me they are exceptionally done.

Again the bad guys have a major role in this one. William Saddler is Colonial Stuart, a heartless leader, who only cares that a drug lord escapes and can get in on all the money making scheme. I loved his role in this. Another face that I remember in Die hard 2 who was a bad guy is Robert Patrick. I loved his role in Terminator 2. But the conflict between the good guys is extremely tense. Especially between McClane and Police Officer Lorenzo played by L.A law star Dennis Franz. It is hard to understand if this character is on the side for good or not.

Here comes another analogy on Die Hard 2, do you ever know who is on the side of good or bad? Well for at least three quarters of the film it is unsure. The storywriters need to be commended because the story left me intrigued and when you think you know what is about to happen, the circumstances change. Also having a different director, gave this sequel new prospective. Director Renny Harlin threw his hand into the ring. What a gamble? An unknown director, but to my surprise I say that it worked. His other films worth mentioning include A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 and Cliffhanger.

So overall Die Hard 2 was extremely enjoyable sequel to watch. The story, the characters and the situation are all of a great tension, which I love in a movie. So one cop who is so vulnerable and emotional ends up being the one person who you would most like to have save your life. Like Willis said in an interview Die Hard 2 - Die Harder - it's bigger, badder and louder. I will leave you with one question, the first Die Hard had approximately 20 people die, can you count for me how many perish in this film? It is quite a turn around!

Rating: 4/5 or 9/10

For those who argue that Die Hard 2 is a desperate re-hash of the original... So what? I didn't expect a companion piece like The Godfather Part II. Die Hard was about a really cool guy in a really bad situation, and the result was probably the greatest action movie ever made. Die Hard 2 achieves status on its own just by being about the same thing. When so many movies want to be Die Hard but fail, why not just make another Die Hard? Director Renny Harlin (Cliffhanger)realized that because it's a sequel, there had to be more stunts and explosions. So there is. Die Hard 2 (appropriately called Die Harder) ups the ante a bit and has fun with a flurry of furious action scenarios. The fight on the wing of the plane is a classic in its own right, and Die Hard 2 stands alone as one of the best of the genre.