Die Hard: With a Vengeance

Die Hard: With a Vengeance is the third film in the Die Hard series starring Bruce Willis as policeman John McClane. With a Vengeance adds Samuel L. Jackson as Zeus Carver, Willis' reluctant partner.

Plot summary

The villain in this movie is Simon Gruber AKA Peter Krieg (played by Jeremy Irons), brother of Hans Gruber, a German criminal who was killed by McClane at the climax of Die Hard, the first film in the series. Simon attempts revenge upon McClane while robbing the high-security bank vault in the basement of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which holds the gold of several foreign nations.

Related Topics:
Simon Gruber - Jeremy Irons - Hans Gruber - Federal Reserve Bank of New York

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Simon distracts the police by planting both real and phony bombs throughout the city, and forces McClane and Carver to participate in a game of "Simon Says", which usually consists of giving them information about a bomb and giving them a chance to defuse it.

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One memorable scene of the film is at the beginning. Simon blackmails McClane to stand on a street corner in the middle of Harlem while wearing a sandwich board sign saying "I hate niggers", which is obviously a suicidal thing to do. Carver just manages to extricate McClane from the scene before he would have gotten lynched. (While filming this scene, the sign worn by Bruce Willis actually says "I hate everybody"; this is the version that appears in TV broadcasts of the film. It was digitally replaced with the "I hate niggers" for use in the theatrical version.)

Related Topics:
Harlem - Sandwich board - Suicidal - Lynched

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Die Hard with a Vengeance was the first in the series not to take place during the Christmas holidays and the first where John McClane is an active police officer on his own patch. Also significant is that for the first time he has an on-screen partner, Samuel L. Jackson's character, Zeus Carver.

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