Die Hard 5: A Good Day to Die Hard - Dir. John Moore (The Die Hard Project #5 - JM)

Die Hard 5: A Good Day to Die Hard (2013)

Dir: John Moore

Die Hard takes a Walk
by
Jay Maronde

                Die Hard 5: A  Good Day to Die Hard is a movie that takes a walk, and I don’t mean that because for the first time John McClane leaves America for his adventure—I mean it in the context of the pitcher who beans the batter and says, “take your base.” Very sadly, this movie is atrocious (like worse than all the bad reviews of the previous four installments combined). Don’t get me wrong, I love DIE HARD, John McClane, and action movies, and by all means there are a ton of outstanding action sequences, but otherwise this movie is complete and utter capitalistic Hollywood garbage. The longer you watch this movie, the more it becomes apparent that the producers were pulling out all the stops for the action scenes, and if they had put 1/10 of the time, energy, and money into producing a movie that contained something of a plot and slightly better writing, this review would read very differently.  But as it stands this is trash, remarkable trash.

                Let’s start with Bruce. He’s awesome and more “die hardish” than ever. But he’s working with nothing for a script.  Every single thing he does is the obvious silly Hollywood plot choice. And sadly, much like an older Roger Moore playing James Bond, his age does detract from the movie. Also, instead of this movie being a buddy film, it’s more of a father/son team up. Which brings us to the new star of the Die Hard series: Jai Courtney playing John “Jack” McClane, Jr. Personally I don’t feel as though Courtney was that poor of a casting  choice, but he’s certainly not even half as good as Shia LaBeouf as Indiana Jones’ son. Further, his role in the film (which I won’t give away) is completely ridiculous: it’s merely a way to put Willis in Russia. Also while on the topic of actors I would like to acknowledge Mary Elizabeth Winsted reprising her wonderful performance from DH4 as Lucy McClane (John’s daughter and Jack’s sister).  Miss Winsted was outstanding and was more than decent in her cameo performance in this film.  However, she looks so much different from the last film that I honestly had no idea it was her until the credits rolled and spent a big part of the experience troubled by this. The rest of the actors are decent character actors playing stereotypical Russian gangsters and again they seem to be doing as much as they can with the poor-to-bad script that they are working with.

Not to let the director off the hook: at no point during this entire film do you feel like Moore had any creative control or self-expression.  To be honest, a decently well programmed robot could have probably churned out more original garbage.

                I’m so sad to have to give the latest installment in one of my favorite series a poor review, but on the brighter side of things the movie made more than 3 times its budget from ticket revenues, so for a film which was intentionally just Hollywood capitalistic trash, I suppose it achieved its goals remarkably well.

Happy 5th [April Fool's Day] Birthday to Flying Houses

Today is April Fool's Day and also the birthday of Flying Houses.  We turned 5 today.

It is always a good time to consider our achievements over the past year.  Consider this my MD&A.

First of all, we cracked 30,000 all time page views.

Second, we cracked 2,000 monthly page views in March 2013, demolishing the previous month's record by nearly 700.  This may or may not have been a "pop" instituted by Jeffrey Toobin's "retweet" of my review of The Oath.

Among the highlights of the past year, The Bond Project remains most prominent.  More than 25 posts were made on this topic.  Flying Houses will be making our 250th Post very soon and we expect it to be a special one.  But we would not be at this point if not for the hard work of Jay Maronde, who has proven himself to be an expert on James Bond.  With the Die Hard Project currently in progress, I cannot thank Jay enough for his contributions.

I also want to thank Emily Dufton for her excellent review of IQ84 by Haruki Murakami.  This was one of the finest pieces of literary journalism/criticism that I have read in recent years, and I am deeply honored that I was able to present it here.

I also want to thank our most recent contributor, J. Alexander Gibson for his review of The Defining Decade, and not just because I post it in the waning days (16 left to go) of my twenties: I feel that these types of books (non-fiction or sociological theory) are potentially the most rewarding ones to review because real life experience, as opposed to the trait of being "well-read," colors the interpretation of a text in more "useful" or "tangible" ways.

I want to thank the BLS Advocate for allowing me to write my column and also post those columns (in their un-edited form) on this blog.  Those comprise an additional 22 posts or so, and again, without those we would not be knocking on the door of 250.

My hope is that by April 1, 2014, I will be gainfully employed, and will have cracked 300 posts and 75,000 page views.  Those may be ambitious projections, but I believe they are within reach.

Apart from those reviews already linked to above, here are what I consider to be the "greatest hits" of April 1, 2012 - April 1, 2013:

#1: NIED #9: Not in Love (Legally)  (posted 4/4/12) - This is a column about people seeking their spouses in law school.  Notable because some anonymous commenter on BLS Advocate just wrote, "you poor, poor thing," after reading it. (I tend to wonder whether that comment was a legitimate expression of sympathy or a passive-aggressive jab.)

#2: The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon (posted 5/13/12) - This was the first book I was able to review by Thomas Pynchon, and it was an excellent read.  Highly recommended, though it does not quite make the list of the "best books reviewed on Flying Houses list" (which you may find in my Profile).

#3: Discourse on Method by Rene Descartes (posted 6/1/12) - Understandably not the most popular post, but an original one as reviews on Flying Houses of philosophical texts hold the potential for enormous intellectual rewards.

#4: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller (posted 6/27/12) - Important because (a) it is named one of the "best books reviewed on Flying Houses" and (b) it is the first of many reviews of graphic novels that were undertaken over this past year.

#5: Big Sur by Jack Kerouac (posted 8/20/12) - Important because it is one of the last works of literature reviewed before the beginning of my 3L year, which brought great changes.  An entertaining review, and a book worth reading if one is interested at all in Kerouac.

#6: Skyfall (JK); Skyfall (JM) (posted 12/3/12) - Dueling Reviews of the newest Bond, our film criticism at its height.

#7: The Brethren by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong (posted 12/15/12) - Maybe I didn't do so well in my classes because I was so wrapped up in this book.  Notable as good "background reading" on certain cases in First Amendment law, provided at the end of the review.   Also notable for making the "best books" list.

#8: Superman: Red Son by Mark Millar (posted 1/1/13) - Notable for being such an outstanding work of art in the graphic novel medium.  A personal favorite from the year and an entrant on the "best books" list.

#9:  My Bloody Valentine - m b v (posted 2/16/13) - The album that took 22 years to release created a ton of music journalism--this was my little drop in the bucket.

#10: Die Hard with a Vengeance (JM) (posted 3/20/13) - This movie is an underrated classic and deserves to be seen by more members of the general public.  I include it as #10 as a way to sign off this post, as we are still meandering in the territory of the Die Hard Project and will soon complete it.

Thanks to all of our readers and thanks especially to those that have left comments.  You have helped to make this blog a success.  It may not be the greatest way for me to make money, but I feel that a substantial public interest has been served, and I will continue to do my best in providing excellent content for years to come.

Live Free or Die Hard - Dir. Len Wiseman (The Die Hard Project #4 - JK)

Live Free or Die Hard (2007)

Director - Len Wiseman

Post 9/11 America Writ Large 

by 

Jack Knorps

The Die Hard films have always held a special place in my heart because Die Hard with a Vengeance was the first R-rated film that I saw in the movie theater.  I would say that though the film technically qualifies for an R-rating, there is nothing so objectionable about it that should worry parents.  Of course there is gun violence, but Live Free or Die Hard is every bit as violent as its predecessor and only earns a PG-13 rating.  So this movie is okay for teens but the last one was not.  If anyone wants to write an essay about the irrationality of the MPAA, then a comparison of these two films and the stated reasons for their ratings will provide a good case study.

I saw Die Hard with a Vengeance when I was 12 and I saw Live Free or Die Hard when I was 24--both in the movie theater.  You see I loved Die Hard with a Vengeance, so I was very excited when a sequel was announced after such a long "quiet" period.  I had never even seen the first two Die Hards.  Later I would move to Los Angeles and watch Die Hard from a small apartment in Silver Lake,  during a time when I would often travel to the Nakatomi Plaza location (Century City) for job interviews.  That film was ahead of its time in 1988 (except perhaps for the reference to "poison pills"--those were soooooo 1985), and its sequel was "with the times" in 1990, and Die Hard with a Vengeance was also current with populist American sentiment in 1995.  The five-year wait for that film seemed long, but the 12 year wait for this one seemed to signal a break in tradition.  Now with a six-year gap for A Good Day to Die Hard, the franchise seems to have a questionable boom-and-bust cycle.

But Live Free or Die Hard is no bust--in fact, I was trying to rank the films on my own, and it is near the top.

#1: Die Hard with a Vengeance
#2: Die Hard
#3: Live Free or Die Hard 
#4: Die Harder
#5: A Good Day to Die Hard (?)

I leave the question mark because I've yet to see it, but yes, it was hard for me to choose between this film and the original as the second-best film in the series--but it cannot touch Vengeance.

Die Hard wins out in second-place because of Alan Rickman's performance, the originality of the film at the time, and the excellent use of Christmas music.  Timothy Olyphant is passable as this film's villain, but ultimately cannot stand in the shoes of Rickman or Jeremy Irons--who deserves to be named one of the top five villains in the history of cinema for his performance in that film.

My colleague Mr. Maronde pointedly argued that Die Hard with a Vengeance is a beautiful film because it is an ode to New York City at the height of its 1990s splendor.  Live Free or Die Hard is a reaction to 9/11, and certainly some of the images of this film are so strong that it easily lands in 3-star territory (you must admit that the "hoax" in this film--which could be a clever commentary on the Separation of Powers and the ultimate wielder of governmental authority in America--had you fooled the first time, too).  Olyphant plays a nerdy former government contractor in homeland security.  He conducts a "fire sale" (I will not define the term) and the scale of this endeavor is also what takes the movie to 3-star territory: this is certainly the most audacious act of terrorism that the Die Hard movies have portrayed yet.

The Die Hard films always seem to have thieves posing as terrorists--and this one is no different, except you have thieves posing as "potential" terrorists--Olyphant believes his actions are justified because he is showing the government what it did not want to know--that the entire domestic infrastructure could be hacked, creating real chaos.

John McClane is, for some reason, hanging out in a college parking lot, spying on his daughter making out with another dude.  His daughter is Lucy Gennaro (not McClane) and her parents have divorced since the last film (or were they already divorced in 1995?  I can't be sure...).  He's still a cop for the NYPD but certainly appears to be approaching retirement.  He gets a random phone call after scaring his daughter's boyfriend and is told to go pick up a college kid played by Justin Long.

Justin Long may be controversial (a very funny moment of this film shows him with a very high-tech cell phone in 2007--it flips so you can text!) for his work in Apple commercials, but he won me over with this movie.  I always found him to be an annoying hipster-ish persona--the perfect image of a Mac User--but he does not act like such a smartypants in this movie.  Oh there is a moment where he explains why he doesn't listen to the news and he makes fun of what Bruce Willis likes to listen to on the radio, but he is quickly brought back to planet Earth as he is nearly killed a dozen or more times.

In terms of "sidekicks," Al is the best sidekick John McClane has (Samuel L. Jackson is #2, and probably the only problem with Die Hard with a Vengeance is that their "buddy-buddy" quality is, at times, feigned or uneven), and Justin Long is passable.  In general this is a very "passable" film, but politically it is the most interesting.

It beautifully depicts the paranoia of the post-9/11 world and (I really believe) is prophetic.  This film was released in May 2007.  In other words, it was released right at the time the markets were about to go bust, and the "thieves" in this film certainly have an analogue in the real life robber barons on Wall Street.  One is intrigued by the prospect of A Good Day to Die Hard (terrible reviews notwithstanding) as each film tends to react towards recent domestic trends in politics (Die Hard = corporate raiding; Die Harder = ?; Die Hard with a Vengeance = racism; Live Free or Die Hard = e-terrorism/Anonymous-style hackery; A Good Day to Die Hard = ? (economic desperation?)).

Len Wiseman does not have a vision quite like John McTiernan (who directed the two best films in the series) but he made a movie that was fun to go see in the movie theater.  I had about as much fun seeing this PG-13 movie as I did that R-rated movie some twelve years earlier.

And the Kevin Smith cameo is priceless.  Anytime you have Bruce Willis checking out a poster and Kevin Smith asking him, "You a fan of the Fett?" you have automatically made a good movie.

Die Hard 3: With a Vengeance - Dir. John McTiernan (The Die Hard Project #3 - JM)

Die Hard: With A Vengeance (1995)

Dir: John McTiernan

A New York Minute From a Very Special Time

By Jay Maronde 

               

                While Die Hard 3 may be on network television somewhat regularly, it’s unlikely anyone will ever see the full version of the movie ever again, even if it's shown on cable. The reason for this is not the language but the fact that the world has changed and we as Americans no longer wish to see the movie’s biggest star in her full glory. Wait you say, Die Hard is a guy movie, who is this ultra-famous lady star—a star bigger than Bruce or Samuel L.? This Grande Dame of Stars I reference is none other than pre-9-11 New York City herself, and peaking in her Clinton/Giuliani era glory!

In this film, just like real estate, location is everything, and rarely has any movie highlighted so many of NYC’s glorious locations as Die Hard 3, and the grandest /saddest NYC site of all is featured heavily from beginning to end: The World Trade Center. As I’ve already mentioned, this is the part(s) of the movie that requires so much editing for American audiences today, and it’s tragic because the film highlights the towers so beautifully and epically that they really should be appreciated in their once towering glory. This isn’t to say that the movie doesn’t have very, very big movie stars, a great director, fantastic action sequences or one of the cleverest plots ever—because surely it does—but in the end, this movie is just as much a wonderful NYC movie as it is a classic of the action genre.

                DH3 opens with a fantastic panorama of NYC perfectly set to the classic “Summer in The City.” As the song ends, a building explodes, and the terrorism has begun. Soon we are transported to a busy police station where the emergency response is being coordinated. Suddenly a secretary has a phone call that the boss needs to answer. On the line is the lead terrorist, played exquisitely by the robust Jeremy Irons in one of his greatest roles ever. As the audience, we only learn much later that the Irons character, Simon, is really the brother of the original Die Hard villain Hans Gruber.  Not only is Simon intent on mayhem, but he demands that a suspended (and terribly hung-over) Lt. John McClane be part of the fun. 

As the movie progresses the viewer learns the just like his brother, Simon isn’t as much of a terrorist as a thief with a very clever ruse. Simon’s first task is for John McClane to go to Harlem and walk the street naked except for a sandwich board that reads: “I HATE NIGGERS.” This bit here is regularly edited for television.  In fact the director had the forethought to film the scene twice—once using another sandwich board that read: “I HATE PEOPLE”—and while this early scene is just a shot across the bow in McTiernan’s masterpiece of an everyman questioning 1990’s American racial issues, it serves to perfectly introduce the films other co-star: the always compelling Samuel L. Jackson as the helpful racist, Zeus Carver. Carver leaves his shop to help McClane (whom he believes to be an escaped mental patient) and is quickly drawn into Simon’s games. The movie progresses all the way across Manhattan from top to bottom and then back to the top, through the Bronx, parts of Westchester, and ultimately ends with in epic helicopter battle in which John McClane once again gets to declare “yippe-ki-yay motherfucker” while sending the villain to an ugly demise.

                DH3’s lead actors are beyond reproach. All three of these gentlemen (Willis, Jackson, and Irons) are remarkably good in their roles. Irons could easily be one of the best villains all time in this role. His acting talent shines so remarkably because at several points he is playing Simon Gruber acting like someone else, be it the mentally unstable terrorist personality he feigns during his phone calls with the NYPD, his acting as a Dutch flower company CEO, or even his feigned Elvis Duran fan/radio caller.  (That is really the real Elvis Duran, playing himself, by the way.) Irons shines throughout the whole movie as he torments McClane and Carver.

Willis and Jackson for their parts are no less amazing. Samuel L. Jackson is probably the pre-eminent casting choice for a disaffected angry Harlem resident whose hatred for white people is so great, it’s “uber-racism.” Bruce Willis, in his third appearance as John McClane, perfected his role as the loose cannon everyman cop kicking ass through a “very bad day.” To be honest, Willis is so amazingly spot-on good at being John McClane that I’m always completely shocked that he ever gets cast for any other roles. (Nothing against Bruce at all, it would just be really cool if they were about to release Die Hard 42, because apparently I’m the only one who never gets tired of these movies, ever.)

My one and only complaint about this film, is that by having removed John McClane’s family from the situation, the movie seems to lose some of its tension being caused by McClane’s desperation. This is no one’s fault, as a crux of the plot is McClane’s status as “one step away from being a full blown alcoholic” due to his estrangement from his wife. This changes the movie slightly from a man trying to save his family to a buddy action flick. Here again is time to sing the praises of Willis and Jackson as two better “buddies” cannot be found in all of American cinema.

Everyone knows that you can have all the greatest actors in the world but without a director you still won’t get a good movie at all. In Die Hard 3, John McTiernan has returned to the classic franchise he helped begin two films earlier and is more outstanding than ever. This movie is excellently planned. From the editing, to the foreshadowing, to the tie-in with previous films in the series, everything about this film fits perfectly together in just such a clever way that it always brings a smile to my face. McTiernan continues to explore the character of the everyman super hero in John McClane this time not only taking on a whole city instead of just a building or an airport, but also through questioning many social mores of the time period. For a movie filmed in the time of race riots, DH3 tackles the race issue head on and has John McClane saying what many average Caucasian folk at that time were thinking: “You’re a racist, you don’t like me because I’m white!” McTiernan, with his “down under” Aussie-approach to American culture didn’t hesitate for a moment in tackling the biggest issues of the time, and he did it with two of the biggest stars at the time. These are the moments in history that drastically alter everyone’s perceptions of race and culture by holding up a mirror to reality and showing us all what we’ve become. By forcing the racist Carver to deal with the stodgy McClane because “This guy (the terrorist) doesn’t care about race” McTiernan was holding up a torch for the people of the world to unite in their shared humanity and hatred of terrorism.

These racial “semi-tones,” while shockingly predictive of a post 9-11 world, aren’t the only triumph of McTiernan in this film—his foreshadowing is exquisite. Please note the scene early on while McClane is in the police van, which is possibly some of the best foreshadowing in Hollywood history.  This one scene sets up so many of the plot points utterly essential for later in the movie, I won’t spoil it, but pay careful attention to what could have been a completely throw away scene.  McTiernan’s directorial genius doesn’t stop there: he twice very covertly alludes to the original Die Hard. First, just outside of Tompkins Square Park when McClane stops the shoplifting youths and is told: “Look around, man! It’s Christmas. You could steal City Hall.”  The “it’s Christmas” is a very careful word choice to help remind the viewers and McClane that not only was the original movie also a heist but also happened on Christmas. My other favorite indirect allusion to the original film occurs when McClane is investigating the Federal Reserve Bank and just as in the original Die Hard a covert terrorist gives himself away with un-American speech patterns.

As I mentioned in the introduction to this piece the real star of this entire movie is the grand city of New York in all of its stunning pre 9-11 glory. First and foremost, I want to say again that we as a people cannot let the terrorists win and happily strike the image of one of the modern wonders of the world from our collective social conscious in some lame apologist attempt to preserve “feelings.” Everyone has very strong feelings about the WTC and 9-11 and I as a writer am no different; I can tell you for a fact that I considered this review long and hard because of The Towers and the fact that I was there and saw it all go down in mind-scarring reality. Personally I will always choose to remember the resilient carefree pre-9-11 NYC that McClane ferociously and triumphantly fights to save before I will concede the horrible realities that terrorism and the police surveillance state have brought upon us all.

All of this being said, NYC is in her finest glory in this film. The movie features not only the WTC, but Wall Street, Harlem, Yankee Stadium, Central Park, Columbus Circle, the real Tompkins Square park (always one of my favorites being some of my old stomping grounds) the real 72nd Street subway station, but also the streets and avenues and traffic, and the real “summer in the city” feel that only NYC can provide. The movie plays it real too: 72nd Street to Wall Street in less than half an hour is a miracle, and just for reference: the aqueduct is real too, even though tunnel 3 is now completely finished and functioning.

Die Hard 3 is a great movie about 2 great heroes fighting their way through what could easily be history’s greatest city (come at me Rome and London). The acting, directing, and locations are epic and this movie should be recognized as one of the finest action movies ever made, and McTiernan hereby cements his place as one of the greatest action directors with this piece. Jackson and Willis, reunited for the first time since their gripping performances in Pulp Fiction, continue to carve out their places in Hollywood history. Jeremy Irons raises the bar for all action movie villains to an incredibly high place with his multifaceted and grimly sardonic performance. All and all not just a movie to see for cinema’s sake, but a film to enjoy because movies are great in the way that they can take us back to times and places that no longer exist all while having a great experience.

               

Die Hard 2: Die Harder - Dir. Renny Harlin (The Die Hard Project #2 - JM)

Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990)

Dir: Renny Harlin

The Blueprint for a Successful Sequel

By Jay Maronde

                Before one can begin a review of Die Hard 2: Die Harder, the question must be posed: what really makes a Great Action Movie?

Now if your answer to that question is that you need to see some “all-new,” “next-level” kind of stuff, then this is not the Die Hard for you—as yes, this is essentially the same movie as the original Die Hard, except in an airport. The production staff of this movie seemed to have realized this glaring flaw, and as such, went “all out” in other ways to produce a fun movie.  

Now, if you define a Great Action Movie as a movie with great characters, great action, and a spectacular ending, then DH2 will be a great time.

                First things first, Bruce Willis returns to reprise his role as the Everyman Cop Hero Caught in the Wrong Place, but trying to save his wife (now no longer estranged)  from terrorists on Christmas Eve. This time the terrorists (who for the only time in the franchise are really terrorists, not just thieves) have seized Dulles Airport while John McClane’s wife is airborne waiting to land.

It is perhaps worth noting that the worldwide popularity of John McClane played no small role in the very quick production of this sequel.  Furthermore, Bruce Willis’s portrayal of John McClane was so popular with audiences that he was encouraged to do more ad-libbing “anywhere he wanted.” To that end, John McClane comes off as grittier, angrier, and more determined than ever—and it works charmingly: Willis, without a doubt, ensures his place in movie history with this fantastic performance. But it takes more than just a great hero to make a great movie.

                Also necessary for a Great Action Movie is a really evil, sick, weird, villain with a fucked-up plan: in this case, to save a thinly-veiled Manuel Noriega caricature from extradition to the US. This evil villain (while possibly the weakest in the series) is played quite well by William Sadler as the traitor Colonel Stuart.  As the movie opens, we find Stuart doing Tai Chi naked in a hotel room and that is just the beginning of his sick-twisted-ness.  This early highlighting of his horrid personality was conceived by director Harlin as an early way to let the audience know that they were experiencing a special kind of villain. But in a shocking twist, it turns out he’s not the only bad guy we find in the movie. Again (as with the original Die Hard), the federal government sends help that isn’t really much help at all. As much as I like Sadler, he is easily outshone by his deviant co-villain, played by John Amos.

                Also of note in this movie are John’s unlikely allies at the airport in the form of its Chief of Police and Head of Airport Operations, played respectively by Dennis Franz (then-hot on the success of “NYPD Blue”) and later U.S. Presidential Candidate Fred Dalton Thompson. Franz is great as an overwhelmed cop who wants nothing less than some hero cop like John McClane bringing trouble to his airport. Thompson, as would be indicated by his run for President, is always great in any role where he is the boss.   

                Now all these great actors doing the best acting in the world wouldn’t be impressive for an action movie at all if the movie didn’t have any action, and DH2 never for a moment lacks on action. John McClane is in the middle of gun fights, snowmobile chases, and all-out-brawls, and Harlin does everything he can to keep all of this action extremely interesting and the movie flows remarkably quickly while keeping the viewer on the edge of their seat the entire time. Harlin, however, saves the best action for the very, very end of the movie.

DH2 easily has one of the best endings of all the Die Hards, and may even boast the greatest action movie ending of all time. While the villains aren’t necessarily beaten or shot to death by McClane, his method of eliminating them is more than outrageous and serves to make for this spectacular ending. John McClane not only blows up a whole plane full of escaping terrorist scum, but in the process singlehandedly re-opens the airport, allowing for his wife’s fuel-depleted plane to make an emergency landing. Audiences always love a loud, crazy and yet “everything turns out great in the end” ending, but the manner in which McClane brings down the plane along with his classic “yippie –ky-yay-motherfucker” is pure Hollywood genius.

                Die Hard 2 may not be the best of all of the Die Hards, but without a doubt it is an enormously entertaining movie. The fact that the movie is in a lot of ways a complete rehash of the original Die Hard is more than made up for by the movie’s excellent pacing, great cast, and off-the-charts action.

Die Hard - Dir. John McTiernan (The Die Hard Project #1 - JM)

Today we commence The Die Hard Project.  Better late than never....

Die Hard (1988)

Dir: John McTiernan

The Detective Turned Super Cop

by Jay Maronde

               

                In the summer of 1988, a Christmas movie was released. This movie, staring a then-upcoming actor named Bruce Willis would later be described as the standard to which all other action movies must be compared, and with this director John McTiernan gave birth to a franchise of movies so epic that that fifth in the series is due to be released this week, 25 years later! Of course, this movie is the original Die Hard, and as we moviegoers eagerly await the release of this year’s Die Hard 5: A Good Day to Die Hard, the fine staff at Flying Houses have decided to give you a little recap in case you may have missed or forgotten anything in the past 25 years.

                Die Hard was adapted from a novel titled Nothing Lasts Forever written by Roderick Thorpe. Mr. Thorpe had previously written a little book called The Detective, which was so popular that it had been made into a 1968 movie starring none other than “old blue eyes” himself, Frank Sinatra.  After the success of The Detective, Mr. Thorpe wrote a sequel with full intentions of it being made into a movie. Praise was lavished on this book from many venues and eventually Twentieth Century Fox agreed to begin production. As he was contractually obligated, Sinatra was given the right of first refusal to play the lead role.  He refused, and from here began one of the most extensive searches for a lead male actor in Hollywood history. When I say extensive I truly mean it, as the role of John McClane was offered to a laundry list of the best male actors in a generation before Bruce Willis finally accepted the role. This list included Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nick Nolte, Richard Dean Anderson, Don Johnson, Sly Stallone, Burt Reynolds, Richard Gere, Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford, Tom Berenger, Robert Deniro, and Charles Bronson.

When Bruce Willis was finally convinced to take the role it was in no small part due to Rupert Murdoch’s personal offer of five million dollars. With a lead actor signed, a director was needed, and after being approached numerous times John McTiernan eventually agreed with the stipulation that he be allowed to “lighten the edges” of a script which he had already twice refused claiming that it was “a real nasty piece of work.”

                John McTiernan then began, scene-by-scene, to assemble what we have already described as the pinnacle of the entire action movie genre. First and foremost, the original script called for terrorists who were really terrorists, and McTiernan immediately turned them into thieves masquerading as terrorists so that “the audience could enjoy them stealing a boatload of money.” Further, the original “Detective” was more of a super cop, and McTiernan had this idea that the role should be more of an “everyman.” As such he felt Willis was perfect for the role and with some more minor tweaks to the original story, the Die Hard we all know and love came about. McTiernan’s vision was not small though, and as such a massive moviemaking process was undertaken, it was greatly due to this big comprehensive vision that Die Hard is such a great movie.

Besides his script work in order to make the movie lighter and more fun McTiernan also demanded the highest caliber of music from his sound designer Michael Kamen. The idea to use Beethoven as the theme music for most of the movie was McTiernan’s, and initially Kamen staunchly refused, saying that he would gladly butcher the entire catalogue of Wagner or Schubert for the movie, but the thought of using lovely Ludwig Van was too much for him to stomach. To counter this, McTiernan explained to him that he wanted the movie to feel inspired by the Ultra Violence of Director Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, and Kamen, being a Kubrick fan himself, eventually consented.

This however wasn’t McTiernan’s only slick move to make Die Hard the fantastic film that it is: he also decided that he needed a real life office tower to shoot the exteriors of Nakatomi Tower. Being that not too many buildings of that size are unoccupied and or available for almost complete demolition, he came up with an interesting solution: he would use 20^th Century Fox’s brand new 90% completed office tower (and of course Fox charged themselves rent on their own building). They also required the production team to import from Italy enough marble to retile all the plazas and stairs outside the building.

                Besides a great set, great action, and a great hero, any good action movie needs one final thing to really reach the other plateaus that the Die Hard films have reached: a resoundingly evil villain.  To fill this role the producers and director gave a British stage actor (of very high repute) his first role on the silver screen. At the time the directors and producers were sure he would be good, but Alan Rickman was so good in the role of Hans Gruber, that over two decades later he’s still the man to call when you need a really evil villain. Rickman is exquisite, and McTiernan’s particular high intensity directorial style was essential in achieving this wonderful performance from a film novice. The clearest example of this delightful collaboration comes later in the movie when McClane meets Hans. In the original script there was never a meeting between these two lead characters and the producers had lamented this extensively. One day during rehearsals McTiernan discovered that Rickman was quite talented at faking an American accent and as such the scene was born. The part of this scene that really highlights both of their genius is while Hans is speaking quite convincingly with a Midwestern American accent, McClane offers him a cigarette, and while non smokers may have never picked up on this subtle detail, Hans smokes like a European. This subtle nuance—along with many others—added a level of detail to the movie that is a big part of the reason why it stands out. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s quite apparent that McTiernan went scene-by-scene to make this movie as utterly fantastic as it is.

                While I could go on and on about how delightful this movie is, it would be completely remiss not to mention the outstanding co-stars. Bonnie Bedelia is fantastic as John McClane’s estranged wife—beautiful, but not someone that an Everyman couldn’t attain. Reginald Vel Johnson as the first cop on the scene and John’s radio ally on the outside was perfectly cast, especially considering that at that time he was already America’s favorite police officer from being one of the stars (opposite one Steve Urkel) from television’s Family Matters.

                John McTiernan had a tremendous vision for Die Hard that was so well executed that it has become the seminal action movie. By really demanding the best from all his actors and production staff he made a movie which has not only stood the test of time, but 25 years later still has America clamoring for more.