- "No, it was John's landlady, gonna clean his apartment."
- ―Joe Lambert
Joe Lambert is a Native-American police detective in the NYPD Major Cases unit.
Die Hard with a Vengeance
Lambert in the police van.
Lambert appears in the police station at the beginning of the film. When Inspector Walter Cobb asks where John McClane is, Lambert remarks, "I doubt you'll find him in church". He is also seen asking who would want to blow up a department store. When Simon calls the station and demands that John McClane go to Harlem, Inspector Cobb orders Lambert and Connie Kowalski to find McClane. Joe rides in the police van on the way to Harlem and later names possible suspects for Simon's true identity.
Later Lambert, Connie and Ricky Walsh have to follow McClane and Zeus Carver. He and Connie were watching from the car as McClane and Zeus dealt with a woman using the phone that Simon requests that McClane and Zeus are assigned to. They watched as Simon gives them riddles and taunts about the large amount of explosions in trash bin next to them, but it turns out it was a fake. Then when McClane and Zeus stole a cab, Lambert drove the car as he and Connie followed them. But were blocked by two trucks near Central Park and radios to Walsh. When a bomb goes off on Wall Street Station, Lambert was among those listening to some intel from Agents Andy Cross and Bill Jarvis, regarding the identity of Simon and other associates involved. They reveal that Simon's name is Simon Gruber, the brother of Hans Gruber whom McClane killed in Nakatomi Plaza in Los Angeles a few years back. When Simon calls and tells the police that he set up a bomb in a school somewhere in Manhattan, he accompanies the search.
Detective Lambert with Zeus Carver following the explosion at Wall Street Station.
Later during a search of one of the schools, Cobb tells Connie to close the East River bridges above 70th street and looked for dump trucks in the Franklin D. Roosevelt East River Drive and asks Lambert if the Federal Reserve Bank was near the subway bombing site. Lambert discovers that the Federal Reserve Bank is the biggest gold storage in the world. Cobb tells him to get a unit down Federal Reserve and find Ricky since he hasn't responded since he stay behind to secure the Wall Street bombing site. They later discovered that the bomb is in Chester A. Arthur Elementary School by McClane through truck driver Jerry Parks. At the school, they searched the area for the bomb. Then Connie tells Cobb and Weiss that Lambert found an disconnected refrigerator is still operational and discover the bomb is there. After the six minute deadline is up, Lambert and the other cops successfully evacuated the school. But then Zeus Carver's nephews and two other kids decided to stay inside. Connie and Lambert run into the school to save the children, but when they reached the roof in attempt to jump to the building, they found out it was too far. As they thought they we're going to lose their lives to the bomb, they find out the bomb was a fake which spares all of them.
At the end of the film, Lambert comforts McClane after Simon avoids capture and somberly says that they found Ricky's body in the Wall Street station.