Merry Christmas, Motherf---ers.

Die Hard

1988

D: John McTiernan

**********

Pros: Story, Characters, Acting, Dialogue, Violence

Cons: Some nitpicks mentioned below

      


       This is one of the best action movies ever made.  In fact, it’s one of those movies that are groundbreaking because they take their relatively disreputable genres and made them worthwhile.  The 80’s seemed to be a heyday for science fiction movies since Star Wars proved that it was a legitimate genre, but the decade was also known for mediocre action movies.  Die Hard took the 80’s action formula and made it work with good characterization, good writing, and generally good filmmaking.  I’m not sure if the resultant string of good actions movies is to blame for the Sci-Fi Slump of the 90’s, though.

     What makes this a great movie is that it realized that the characterization was the most important thing in a movie.  Most of the action movies of the 80’s focused on the action, but Die Hard spent most of its time developing the characters, and most of the tension comes from their calculating verbal interactions.  This is a similarity it has with one of my favorite movies that some may find surprising.  Before we even see the terrorists, the movie takes the time to establish the strained relationship between John McClane (Bruce Willis) and his wife Holly (Bonnie Bedalia).  This conflict is arguably just as important as the rest of the movie as it not only develops the protagonist as a sympathetic everyman, but also because it is integrated well with the action plotline.  Because Holly is using her maiden name while working at the Nakatomi Tower, she is able to be a liaison for the hostages to the terrorists without their realizing who she is.  She does so coolly and intelligently, making her an underrated character.  McClane is also likable for his snarky attitude and his cunning, and Willis is perfectly cast as the movie’s working-class hero.  He works within his limits, keeps his distance from his antagonists and only faces them a few at a time.  He doesn’t reveal his true name to Hans over the radio he uses to communicate with everyone, using the alias Roy [Rogers].  He occasionally uses taunts to manipulate the antagonists, as well.  When he sends the body of his first kill down to Hans and his men, he uses their reaction as an opportunity to spy on them and figure out their names.  I also like how McClane is described by Gruber to be an outmoded hero, a man who thinks he’s John Wayne lost in the modern world.  Our hero, responds with the amusing fact that he prefers Roy Rogers for his flamboyant clothes and utters the classic “Yippie Ki Yay, Motherf---er.”  Oddly enough, this phrase has been used throughout the sequels despite the lack of context.  It was relevant in this movie, since McClane was going up against a foreign foe who dismissed him as an American cowboy wannabe.  It wasn’t so when he was fighting Timothy Olyphant.  Also, as if crude language was the key to this movie’s success, fanboys griped about how Live Free or Die Hard didn’t allow McClane to drop the F-Bomb…despite the fact that he SHOOTS AN UNARMED MAN IN COLD BLOOD in that movie.  Sometimes I just don’t understand other people.          

     The terrorists are led by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), and I don’t think I need to mention that he is one of cinema’s classic antagonists.  Rickman’s voice and performance great, and his character exudes wit and tact.  Despite his charisma, he’s not afraid to get his hands dirty by personally facing off against McClane in a gunfight and going out into the open when he needs to gather information.  He may be a ruthless killer, but he knows to act with some level of civility toward the hostages.  He occasionally gives concessions to them in order to keep them from getting unruly (like having a couch brought out for a pregnant woman), but he’s perfectly willing to murder them when they get out of line.  One great example is Ellis, a memorably annoying character who attempts to trifle with Gruber and succeeds only in revealing McClane’s real name and getting shot.  With so many movies that seem to shove annoying characters in the audience’s face, Die Hard stands out by actually killing its token nuisance.  This stands in stark contrast with the death of Holly’s boss Joseph Takagi (James Shigeta), a likable and charming man who faces his death with admirable stoicism.  The nonchalant manner in which Hans murders him establishes just how brutal a man he is.

     The second most prominent antagonist is Karl (Alexander Godunov), a henchman whose brother is McClane’s first kill.  His quest for revenge adds a bit of humanity to the bad guys’ ensemble.  The sibling’s chemistry is hinted at in a fun little moment at the beginning when Karl’s brother is trying to meticulously disable the phone lines, and Karl impishly saws the conduits with a chainsaw, much to the former’s frustration.  Another memorable villain is the group’s sassy hacker/token black man (Clarence Gilyard), who is eventually subdued by another token black man (De’voreaux White).

     Die Hard’s actual score is effective, if forgettable.  Its most memorable aspect was the use of Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony as a leitmotif for the terrorists, which makes sense since both the song and the villains are German.  It makes less sense that the song is used as a general them for the franchise without the context.  In Die Hard with a Vengeance, they used another recognizable classic for the movie’s theme song.  I’m really not sure what “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” had to do with German people robbing banks, but it sounded surprisingly good.  I was hoping that each subsequent Die Hard movie would use its own classical masterpiece, but sadly this did not catch on.  The occasional use of Christmas jingles and decorations occasionally give the movie the feel a true Christmas movie.  The action in this movie is short and sweet.  Most of the gunfights are efficiently executed, and the violence, with its liberal use of blood splatter, is very well-executed.    

     The movie, like all films, has its share of flaws.  First nitpick is that the German terrorists seem to be more comfortable speaking in English than in their own native language.  A more annoying flaw is actually a Hollywood cliché that I hate: making professional authorities look like idiots just to make the protagonist look better.  The most prominent example is LA’s Deputy Police Chief Dwayne T. Robinson, played by professional 80’s strawman Paul Gleeson.  Although he astutely points out at the beginning of the movie that McClane could be a terrorist trying to mislead them, almost everything else he does afterwards is brash, stupid and callous.  Even worse are the two FBI agents Big Johnson (Robert Davi) and Little Johnson (Grand L. Bush).

         Let's talk about Johnson & Johnson for a minute.  People tend not to acknowledge these two characters.  In fact our communal memory of this movie tends to delete them altogether.  They gleefully enact a plan that involves a significant loss of the civilian hostages.  Also, I hate double entendres and I’ve never liked the term “Johnson” as a phallic slang term.  I think the reason for this silent rejection of the characters is that Johnson & Johnson may be evidence of something we're in denial about: that Die Hard may have been intended as a satire.  They're so over-the-top that they shatter the illusion for most of us that this is (at least accidentally) a truly great actioner.  A problem with John McTiernan is that he's an earnestly good action director who apparently thinks he's Paul Verhoeven.  He thinks Die Hard is a deconstruction of the genre, when it mostly succeeds at being an above-average example of one.  Likewise, he "satirized" gunporn in Predator with...gunporn while other attempts at subversions in the movie just ended up being a good example of The Worf Effect.   This often results in McTiernan's apparently hypocritical defenses that his movies' do not promote violence while others do.
        The only local cop who is depicted as being sympathetic (except maybe the faceless SWAT enforcers who are injured and killed as a result of their boss’ incompetence) is Sgt. Al Powell (Reginald VelJohnson), McClane’s primary point of contact among the police.  Depending on who you are, you either found it funny that the guy from Die Hard got his own sitcom, or you found it funny that you spotted the guy from Family Matters in a serious movie.  I admit to being the latter.  These flaws I noticed are personal pet peeves of mine and they made Ebert's infamous panning of the movie somewhat understandable, but you have to forgive stuff like that in a gem.

     Everyone loves this movie, and I’m with them.  I’ve never quite agreed with the generalization that heroes need some sort of physical vulnerability and they can’t kill too many villains without a scratch.  People who believe this often cite Die Hard as the example of the right thing to do.  This is an annoying habit I see among internet reviewers: the fallacious argument of “My favorite movie does this, therefore any movie that doesn’t do this is a bad movie.”  Personally, I believe that different movies can have different goals as long as they accomplish those well.  Die Hard isn’t great just because it tries to impose vulnerabilities on its hero; it’s great because it establishes the hero as likable and when it makes him vulnerable, it does it well.  McClane’s bare feet is a classic moment in action movie history: it’s original, its reasoning makes sense, and it provides a memorable moment in the glass scene.  The situations John McClane finds himself in give him an opportunity to display his characteristic cunning.  McClane's vulnerability is also a constant theme in the movie; it isn't just introduced and then ignored later.  In fact, I find it annoying, pretentious and insulting when vulnerability is badly handled.  When this doesn't happen, it leads to tediously drawn-out action, clichéd subplots where a superhero loses his powers and injuries that are brushed off with half-assed cop-outs.  Also, I like stylized, one-man-army action scenes like the ones seen in Equilibrium and Samurai Jack.  Sure, a lot of bad movies, like Underworld and Resident Evil: Apocalypse, use such scenes, but those movies suck because they didn’t develop their characters in the first place.  If you make me like a character, I won’t care how much difficulty he has in the fight scenes.  Different movies use different means of engaging the audience, but I believe there's also a Valley Rule with Suspense.  Some action scenes can be so noncommittal in this respect that they add just enough faux suspense to be tedious.  It's better to be consistent on either end.      Gripes aside, Die Hard is a true classic and a must-see.
            However, there is some controversy over the movie's status as a Christmas movie.  I used to shrug and accept this idea, until the pro-side motivated me to react by resorting to obnoxiously meming the assertion to the point where even Bruce Willis had enough.  I'm going to take a stand and so it's not a Christmas movie.  You can see it as such if you want, but it's important to note that if you lead people to believe it is, they will watch it in the wrong mindset and risk being disappointed by a good movie.  Many misleading trailers have led to this effect.  You're not doing Die Hard any favors with this meme.
           Even among non-Christmas Christmas movies, Die Hard has relatively little yuletide involvement: a jingle here and there, and one memorable line, but the movie would have been just as good without Christmas.  I've heard the argument that the Christmas party necessitated the plot, but that could have worked for any holiday.  The only moment in the movie I'd say is completely dependent on Christmas is the "machine gun ho ho ho" line.  I'd say the Christmas style and atmosphere are not enough in this movie to get into the spirit.  Batman Returns, for example, lays the atmosphere on much thicker despite not really being about Christmas either.  Even the mediocre Die Hard 2 is more Christmas-y because of the presence of snow, and Die Hard with a Vengeance, while taking place in the summer, does indulge in a Santa reference.  This puts Die Hard really low on my Advent watch list even if it counts.  It's generally considered the best non-Christmas Christmas movie, but then again I think Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a contender.