Factual error: This film perpetuates the Hollywood myth that being shot in the upper leg is a minor inconvenience and will leave you with a slight limp and not much else. Simon shoots Zeus in the thigh with a Heckler and Koch MP5K from a range of about a metre. That would almost certainly shatter his thigh bone and rip through his femoral artery. In the unlikely event that Zeus was lucky enough to avoid any such injuries, he wouldn't be walking anywhere for months.
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Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995)
Plot summary
Directed by: John McTiernan
Starring: Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Irons, Graham Greene
Things aren't going well for John McClane (Willis): his marriage is breaking up, he's been suspended from the force and now a guy who calls himself Simon (Irons) threatens to blow up a school if McClane doesn't run around the city solving his demeaning and dangerous puzzles. With the help of Zeus (Jackson), a Harlem electrician, McClane discovers Simon's plot to distract the NYPD while he clears the federal bank of billions of dollars in gold.
John McClane: Listen, you fail I cover your ass. I fail you cover my ass!
Zeus: And if we both fail?
John McClane: Then we're both fucked!
Trivia: When John is asked what he has done during his suspension from the police force he says "smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo." This is a line he sings from the song "Flowers on the Wall" by the Statler Bros from the radio in Pulp Fiction just before he ran over Wallace. Appropriate, since Pulp Fiction falls neatly between Die Hard 2 and 3.
Question: What is that gun thing that is pushed into the guy's neck after he says "I thought this was a currency exchange?" Is the guy dead or just knocked out?
Answer: I've always wondered this and I don't think you're going to find a good answer. I know everyone is saying it was a tranquilizer. But tranquilizers wear off and if one of those people they gave an injection to regained consciousness it could be a big problem for them. eg. The cops in the subway. That's why I think it was probably a fatal injection of something.
It's not a fatal injection. Remember, Simon says, "I'm a soldier, not a monster." And earlier, one of the henchmen yelled at Otto, "No shooting." Simon doesn't intend to kill anyone (though later he changes his mind when he's ready to blow up the ship). The only people who killed anyone were Otto, Katya, and McClane.
I'm pretty sure the bombing at the beginning of the movie killed people. Plus, the bomb in the subway would have killed a whole bunch of people. Saying Simon doesn't intend to kill anyone is quite naive.
My opinion is it was not a fatal injection. They seem to be strangling and killing the guards in that scene; they could have easily done the same to the manager as well. My thinking is Simon deemed there was no need to kill the manager, so he simply knocked him out and likely tied him up.
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Answer: Knocked out. It was a hand held tranquilizer gun like most vets use on animals to put them to sleep.
Rollin Garcia Jr