Die Hard 2 (1990)

Film: Die Hard 2 (1990)

Stars: Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, William Atherton, Reginald VelJohnson, Franco Neo, John Amos, Dennis Franz, Fred Thompson

Director: Renny Harlin

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2023 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the Golden Age western, and the stars who made it one of the most enduring legacies of Classical Hollywood.  This month, our focus is on Franco Nero: click here to learn more about Mr. Nero (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

By the late 1980's, it seemed like Franco Nero had largely given up on the concept of being a leading man in Hollywood.  The actor spent most of the 1980's working on Italian productions, including the only official sequel to Django, 1987's Django Strikes Again, and getting a supporting part in the Elizabeth Taylor curiosity Young Toscanini.  Nero did, however, get a supporting part in one of the biggest films of 1990, which is how we're going to close out our look at the actor this month.  Two years after the surprise success of Die Hard turned Bruce Willis into a star, the actor came back with an inevitable sequel, one where Nero would play the new big baddie in Die Hard 2.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place, like in real life, two years after the original movie came out, with John McClane now working for the LAPD, but visiting his wife's family in DC.  He's stuck at Dulles airport, waiting for his wife Holly (Bedelia) to return so he doesn't have to spend so much time with his in-law's one-on-one; he's also a bit of a celebrity from the events in the first movie.  At the airport, he stumbles across a plot being foisted by Colonel William Stuart (Sadler), as Stuart has shut down all of the runway lighting, making all of the planes circling the airport (just in time for Christmas, adding more fuel to the "is Die Hard a Christmas movie?" debate).  Stuart is blackmailing air traffic control to let General Esperanza (Nero) to land safely and flee the country rather than face trial in the United States.  This sets off a standoff between Stuart's men, McClane, and the air traffic police (including Dennis Franz & Fred Thompson) who at first hate McClane's interference, but in the end decide it's best to listen to him.

This is, of course, because he's always right.  Die Hard 2 has frequently been criticized in the wake of Die Hard, a relatively stupid movie that works because Willis is in sexy unlikely hero mode (and Alan Rickman is dynamite as Hans Gruber), because it turns McClane from a rough-and-tumble cop into a superhero.  There's no pretense here-every single one of McClane's decisions and moves are exactly right, and the cops that he's going up against are always wrong.  There's such a libertarian streak in this movie that you'd think it'd been directed by Clint Eastwood.  The film also fails in its side characters (for starters, there's too many of them).  John Amos has a twist where he's actually working for the bad guys undercover, but it's not telegraphed AT ALL and comes across less as good story structure and more "wouldn't it be awesome if?" riffing.  The villains are also a failure.  Sadler opens the film completely naked, to the point where you think you might get another great crazy villain, but never delivers on that promise, and Nero is sidelined for huge chunks of the film.  You know Nero would probably be capable of at least a Gruber-like dialogue, but he never gets the opportunity, going up in flames without much character development.

Nero's career never really got out of the mold of Italian leading man, occasional Hollywood player.  He would make Italian films for much of the next two decades, but none had the crossover appeal of Django, and would star in supporting roles in Hollywood movies like John Wick: Chapter 2, The Pope's Exorcist, and Letters from Juliet, where he reunited onscreen with his long-time love Vanessa Redgrave.  In 2012, he even reprised a version of his Django character in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, clearly inspired by the western.  Next month, we're going to talk about the career of another actor who worked in spaghetti westerns, and like Nero, would cement his stardom there.  But unlike Nero, he would not only become a major leading man, but would become one of the defining cinematic stars of the past 50 years.