Mercury Rising sees Willis playing a classic foil to authority as FBI Agent Art Jeffries (Bruce Willis), who is haunted (here we go again) by a previous incident in which an FBI task force intervened in a hostage situation he was working on, and not only killed the perp, but a young boy caught in the middle. Art ends up punching his superior out, something we always wished he'd do a lot more in the Die Hard films. The rest of the narrative is more ludicrous than the earlier DH films, though would probably slot well into the techno-centric nature of the later installments, with Jeffries having to protect an autistic savant child who holds the key to cracking a secret government code, and has bullets flying at him left and right. The premise is more singular than the Die Hard films typically allow, and it's undeniably hokey, but the film sees Willis totally harnessing his inner-McClane; a badass who really cares.