Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Andrew Sanford | News | March 21, 2025
Die Hard With A Vengeance rules. It’s a fun time and is almost as good as the original. Part of the reason it’s great is the return of director John McTiernan. The man knows how to direct action thrillers, making the romp through New York City tense and exciting. There is an NYC presented that feels real and unforgiving. It also helps that the movie is littered with excellent character actors from the screen and stage like Colleen Camp and Graham Greene. But, it would be irresponsible to ignore that the film’s biggest strength is the chemistry between its lead actors: Bruce Willis and Samuel L Jackson.
Jackson and Willis are dynamite in this movie. The energy between them is crackling the whole time, whether they’re arguing or … arguing less. It’s kind of astounding that they would only work together two more times after Die Hard, in Unbreakable and Glass. They should have been cast in buddy pictures every other year from 1995 onward. Instead, we got what we got, and both of them went on to continue their illustrious careers. On Willis’ 70th birthday, which happened this week, Jackson reflected on how advice Willis gave him on the Vengeance set came to fruition.
“He told me, ‘Hopefully you’ll be able to find a character that, when you make bad movies and they don’t make any money, you can always go back to this character everybody loves,” Jackson explained to Variety. “He said, ‘Arnold’s got Terminator. Sylvester’s got Rocky and Rambo. I’ve got John McClane.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, okay.’ And it didn’t occur to me until I got that Nick Fury role — and I had a nine-picture deal to be Nick Fury — that, ‘Oh, I’m doing what Bruce said. I’ve got this character now.’” In a perfect world, Mace Windu would be the character Jackson returned to time and again, but here we are.
Nick Fury will be an indelible part of Samuel L Jackson’s legacy, as will John McClane for Bruce Willis. He has appeared as Fury in 12 MCU films (that I could count). The character has been remade to look like Jackson across various forms of media (though that started before he got the role). So, Willis was right in his hopes for Jackson, and while the actors never got to work together as much as they should have, it’s sweet that someone with a career like Samuel L. Jackson can look back on the exchange so fondly.
