Round III: The Supporting Characters
While Die Hard films typically boil down to McClane and the villain as the most important players, the movies are at their best when Bruce Willis has other engaging personalities to play off of. The original film did this the best, of course, with great characters like Sgt. Al Powell providing solid laughs and emotional beats throughout. One of the reasons so many fans view Die Hard 2 as a disappointment, I think, is because it lacks these sorts of characters; it is almost impossible to remember any of the non-McClane figures in the film, and one of the only character interactions that truly excels comes in Reginald VelJohnson’s brief cameo.
Die Hard With a Vengeance and Live Free or Die Hard are obvious improvements over film 2 in this regard, even if they fail to stack up to the original. Both of these movies stick McClane with a sidekick, and attempt to flesh out the police/FBI force behind him. I never find myself hugely interested in the latter set of characters, but I like both sidekicks a great deal. Samuel L. Jackson is a great addition to the cast in film 3, and shares entertaining chemistry with Bruce Willis, while Justin Long works surprisingly well as a completely non-physical partner in the fourth film. I like both of them quite a bit – and film 4 deserves mention here for Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s good work as Lucy McClane – but Vengeance has a slight edge thanks to Jackson.
The Winner: Die Hard With a Vengeance
Current Score: 0-2-1
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