Rent Crackerjack (1994)

A sulky hero, a totally uninventive script and a lack of exciting action sink this Die-Hard clone - Crackerjack review by BG

This is what happens when you try to make a low-budget Die-Hard in a mountain resort with a lack of ideas, a lack of budget, and a direct-to-video action hero.

You get Christopher Plummer doing a bad imitation of a German bad guy. Why? Because Hans Gruber was German and European baddies were in style at the time. You get an entire resort being held hostage when the bad guys could have achieved their target when it was on its way or leaving the hotel instead.

You get bad guys deciding not to shoot the hero because they want to beat him up some more, and then - surprise - dying because of their stupidity. You also get some laughably bizarre decisions: Griffith's 'Jack' is such an antisocial idiot that it's amazing anyone talks to him at all. It's one thing to write a character as being moody and in emotional pain - it's another to make them a total jackass who's rude to absolutely everybody. We also get a female criminal henchman who speaks with a distractingly deep voice, and cheap-looking action that largely ignores the mountain setting and could have been filmed in a hotel in Baltimore (the image on the cover never happens). Oh, and awesomely rubbish dialogue: "They've taken the hotel, and everyone in it, hostage!!!" You can take people hostage. You can't take a hotel hostage. It's a building...

The action is low budget, the ideas are low-creativity, and the director is clearly a low-achiever. A pile of junk trying to cash in on the 'Die Hard in a-' craze.