Die Hard With A Retrospective

Nice article, really enjoyed that look back. And I'm glad someone else appreciates the, "No more taaaable!" line. Bar has been set high Russ, looking forward to Monday.

Great stuff! Perfect timing since I'm going to start my own Die Hard retrospective tomorrow in preparation for the fourth one.

"Yeah, this is Agent Johnson. No, the other one."

"Authorization? How about the United States Fucking Government?!"

"I'm Agent Johnson, this is Special Agent Johnson. No relation."

Davi = awesome.

Fun stuff. I think I'm going to agree that the "face dive into a glass partition" is the best kill. Though I've always loved how sudden and simply Al Leong meets his maker.

I have a feeling I'm going to get into defensive mode once DIE HARDER goes under the microscope, but I'm looking forward to reading Part 2 on Monday.

Yeah, me too. I just watched it the other day, and it's surprisingly effective. I'll even go on record and say I prefer it to WITH A VENGEANCE. I think it's got better villains, better action sequences, and the stakes are higher. The airplane crash is still pretty goddamn gruesome, especially post-911.

"Oh I hope that's not a hostage." RIP Paul Gleason

Great article. And one of my other favoirtes (just because of Bruce's delivery) is:

"Well I got news for you DWAYNE, from here it doesn't look like you're in charge of jack shit!"

Somehow, "butt-fucked on live TV" has double-power, and should count as 2 fucks.
Please be kind to the Manhattan portion of With a Vengeance.

"Welcome to the party, pal!"

This is a great action movie, but a couple aspects didn't do it for me:

- Dick Thornberg subplot
- stupidity of supporting characters, like Dwayne T. Robinson

Other than that, it works just fine. And I always thought the shot of the guy's kneecaps getting shredded was totally nasty, in a good way of course.

DIE HARDER seems to split people into 2 camps, those who think it's a tired rehash of the original and those who find it to be a lovely rehash of the original. I've always been in the lovely camp.

One of my favorite "Agent Johnsons" moments is when they're discussing strategy in the helicopter.

"Figure we take out the terrorists. Lose twenty, twenty-five percent of the hostages."

"I can live with that."

REALLY?

Great review. Other than perhaps Aliens, I can't think of another action movie from the 80s that has aged this well.

Great great movie, looking forward to Die Hard 2 (which I hated) and Die Hard with a Vengence (which was ok) to be dissected.

I don't think Dwayne is stupid. He's just an asshole boot-licker.

He shouldn't have been written/played so dumb, in my opinion; his only purpose seemed to be to make other characters look smart.

Hey man, its all personal preference. I've just never heard that complaint before.

I agree with this for the most part. But I do think that there's a bit of comic stupidity to his character (see: "Oh I hope that's not a hostage").

"Send in the car!"

A group of friends and I watched this a few months back, I hadn't seen it years and neither had everyone else, and it's still a damn good, fun film. It's all the little things, like the use of "Ode to Joy" and some of the dialogue (most of which was improv).

"Hans... buddy... I'm your WHITE KNIGHT."

Gotta love it.

great piece russ.

also, I fucking love Die Hard 2. Renny Harlin has never been better...and yes I know he did Long Kiss Goodnight.

If all the haters out there would actually rewatch it, you would realize that it takes a lot of cues from the original, but it definitely has its own sense of style to it and its own series of iconic moments i.e. The ejector seat scene, which STILL holds up even in this day and age of CGI.

But I will save my real thoughts on it for the impending battle on monday.

I think Ellis is the real standout from DH though. I can't tell you how many times me and my buddies say to each other "HANS, BUBBY!:

Alan Rickman plays possibly the best villian in an action movie here, ever. Along with Kurtwood Smith from Robocop, some of the best bad guys ever. They just don't make them like they used to.

Rickman's got so many great lines that would have been NOTHING without his delivery.

"Sit! Down."

"You ask for a miracle, I give you the F. B. I."

"Shoot, the glass!"

"When we have achieved our aims you can either walk out of here... or be carried out. Decide now, each of you."

You know what's great about Rickman's Gruber? Most action movies, the villain thinks they're smarter than the hero, until the hero proves them wrong. Gruber really is smarter than McClane. Honestly, McClane wins through mostly luck and his cop skills, not any brainwork. The whole "Shoot the glass!" moment, when I first saw that, I got really happy, because it's something a really smart villain would do. It's one of my favorite moments in the film, where Gruber just shows McClane his ass.

The Rickman moment that I just love is when he's making his bullshit terrorist demands and mentions freeing his fellow comrades in the "Asian Dawn." Cut to that puzzled expression on Alexander Gudinov's face and then right back to Rickman proclaiming "I read about them in TIME magazine."

Just watched this one again the other night. While the set-up is very creaky and the Holly airplane stuff pretty dispensible, all the McClane v. Terrorists stuff works like gangbusters. Talk about a movie that could never be made today! McClane walks into the airport command center firing a machine gun full of blanks at people! An old lady manages to carry a fucking taser gun onto the plane!

"What's security like?
"Like we thought: a joke!"

Simpler times.

Another great Ellis line:

"Hey babe, I negotiate million dollar deals for breakfast. I think I can handle this Eurotrash."

and this exchange:

Hans: Touching, Cowboy. Touching. Or should I call you Mr McClane? Mr Officer John McClane of the New York Police Department?
John McClane: Sister Teresa called me Mr McClane in the Third Grade. My friends call me John... and you're neither shithead

You've got an awesome mom, Russ.

I saw the first DIE HARD while on vacation here in the states, visiting relatives in San Jose during the summer of '88. Before I returned to Tokyo a week later, I'd seen it two more times. A near-perfect action film. I still hear Michael Kamen's "dum-dum-dum-da-dum" cue every time I enter a highrise elevator.

Great stuff. Really looking forward to the rest of these.

In one of the film classes I took years ago, I had a teacher who made a disparaging remarks about Die Hard, lumping it in with other brain-dead action movies. I was about to throw my desk at her and hold the class hostage ala Gruber, but I just dropped the class instead...

Oh, and her favorite movie was "The Best Years of Our Lives"... [shudder]

I was going to comment on there being no mention of Argyle in your restropective but then I noticed you also failed to give props to Rick Ducommun. He absolutely nailed the role of Walt the city worker.

I love Ducommun's bit in DIE HARD but he tops it as "Guy whose swimming pool is hit by a car" in THE LAST BOY SCOUT.

What's great about the scenes where they cut to Argyle, or the Johnsons, or to Ellis is that at no time do you wish they'd just get back to McClane. You just don't often see that many fun supporting characters in action films.

I used to drive past the Nakatomi Building (or Fox Building, rather) on Olympic every day going to and from work. It always took me back to the quintillion times I watched the original "Die Hard" as a kid. I still revisit it every Christmas Eve.

Last year, I read the book, "Nothing Lasts Forever," by Roderick Thorp, which the film is based on. The hero, Joe Leland, is actually a grandfather in the novel, and he's visiting his daughter in L.A., not his estranged wife. Incidentally, the building isn't owned by the Japanese, but a Texas oil baron. The story beats are fairly similar. It's got a bit of a downer ending, though.

Still, the movie is absolute perfection. McClane leaping off the rooftop as it explodes is one of my favorite -- if not my most favorite -- action movie moments.

Favorite Ellis moment: "John didn't you hear me?"

Favorite Argyle moment:



His reaction when he hears the word "buttfucked" is a close second.

Favorite Johnson moment: Davi's dead serious delivery of "RIGHT UP THE ASS"

Awesome stuff. Die Hard is THE Christmas film in my family, too; we watch it every year while getting together.

very nicely done. looking forward to parts 2 & 3 (and i'd imagine a review of the fourth will be coming on friday?)

a (very smart) friend of mine once put it to me that Die Hard is the greatest American pure action film ever made. and being unable to argue, i agree. cause it is. no sci fi, no horror, no aliens, no nothing extra, just action. a guy, some villians and a lot of fucking ammo. nothing beats Die Hard (possibly never will).


The Outlaw Vern has a very thorough comparison of film and novel. His site is linked in my sig. right down thurr. check it.

Saw this film 4 times in the theater - twice with my folks. (We had a $.99 movie theater at the base of Signal Mountain that I could go to after we ate Japanese).

Incidentally, Die Harder was based on the book "58 Minutes", and sorta resembled it. I remember reading "Nothing Lasts Forever" and three bits in the book really still stand out to me - he had a Thompson Sub-Machine Gun in the book, and it lifted someone off the ground and threw them over a table when they were shot with it; he had a football sized wad of C4 at some point in the story; and when one of the terrorists was thrown to the pavement, it made a "wet, crackling sound". GREAT descriptors.

After me, my brother, and some friends saw Spidey 3 a couple of weeks ago, we were bullshitting in the parking lot, and I announced that to celebrate the opening of Live Free or Die Hard, I would be watching Die Hard on the 110" theater set up at work. I am not interested in the new one, and despite the fact that Tim Olyphant and Maggie Q are in this one, I give no fucks.

Powell: "I don't know - a hunch! Like being able to spot a fake ID!"
Robinson: "He could be a fucking BARTENDER for all we know, Powell!"

well done. i also plan on watching the original next Friday.

Great review. For me the most memorable moment is probably McClane shooting the window then swinging through on the fire hose.

It doesn't matter how many times I watch the scene where he's trying to free himself from the fire hose as it slowly drags him to the edge, I always tense up.

Great article Russ. I liked how you mentioned the cheap gas, as each time Powell exits the 7-11 I always look at the gas prices. As has been said before, simpler times.

Marcotwin's death is definitely the best kill of the movie, but I also got to go along with Molt on Al Leong's death. The shocked look on his face as he opens the door just sells it.

Looking forward to the Die Harder article, as I'm also Pro-Die Harder.

Since most of the great lines have already been posted I post these.

"Take this under advisement jerkweed. Geronimo motherfucker!"

Gotta also chime out love for Ellis' Hans! Bubby!

Fantastic article. I can't wait to read the others. I have seen DIE HARD maybe five times this last month on cable (pan & scan blows) but just reading this is making me want to bust out the boxset.

I have warmed up to DIE HARDER over the years. I have to give William Sadler credit for even trying to follow up after Rickman's amazing performance. The scenes with Willis and Franz are absolutely hilarious.

"Hey, sprechen Sie talk?"

A few of my favorite gems:

"Nine million terrorists in the world and I gotta kill one with feet smaller than my sister."

"Wait, wait, what have we here gentlemen? The police have themselves an RV."

"Nice suit. John Phillips, London. I have two myself. Rumor has it Arafat buys his there."

"Thought you guys just ate donuts."

It's great seeing other people respond to Marcotwin's leg-de-meatening, and Al Leong's punchy, satisfying death. Visceral death scenes seem to transcend time and place and speak to the caveman in all of us. Beautiful.

And it's nice to see the article acknowledging that this film - all three, in fact - have a great feel for time and place. This is late-'80s LA, all twinkling cityscapes and Stevie Wonder ambient music.

I am, however, sick of people calling it "the best pure action movie ever", like it just can't compete with "proper" movies. It can, and does. It's a bona-fide Great Movie.

Most strangely sympathetic terrorist: that hangdog-looking Longhair male model guy. You can tell he just wants to stop killing people and go home to his cokewhore supermodel girlfriend for an enchanting Christmas morning.

Most hateable terrorist: that curly-haired blond guy in the white woollen top, who's that sort of pure, screaming, terrifying, fucking insane German stereotype asshole. Great performance.

It's one of the best films ever, and a lot of that credit has to also go to Alan Rickman for creating one of the best bad guys ever, a great foil for Willis. It always surprises me that he never played another character like that, considering how good he was at it. Even just the way he talks makes the character work - showing the way he thinks quickly and clearly.

"As soon as they land we blow the roof, they'll spend a week sifting through the wreckage, and by the time they figure out what went wrong, we'll be sitting on a beach, earning twenty percent."

And the speech about Alexander's 'breadth of his domain' when he's talking to Takagi about the models. Great stuff.

it is, though. it's also one of the greatest christmas movies of all time.

and, yes, it's quite simply a great movie, and one of the best (my personal favorite between the ages of 8 and 18).

He was somewhat similar and as sinister as the villain in a Tom Selleck western called QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER. I've never seen ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES so I don't know how he was in that one. I imagine after DIE HARD he was flooded with offers to play the bad guy in all sorts of films. He was probably wise to not visit that well too often.