Die (if you're) Hard
July 17, 2018 11:46 AM   Subscribe

 
Coincidentally, I just rewatched Die Hard on an airplane and was also struck by how it spent so much time thoroughly tearing down the hapless FBI jocks and how little time on McClane shooting people.

It's a very good movie.
posted by BungaDunga at 11:52 AM on July 17, 2018 [9 favorites]


"Am I trolling? I don’t even know any more."
posted by w0mbat at 12:07 PM on July 17, 2018 [9 favorites]


John’s own form of attention-seeking is dropping a body on a cop car, but hey, it fucking well works. Better than yelling or crying, so next time men aren’t listening and I’m getting irked, I’ll remember that trick.
I love this very very much.
posted by hanov3r at 12:26 PM on July 17, 2018 [13 favorites]


Since, like many other people, my favourite Christmas film is Die Hard,
I've got some bad news about that.
posted by k5.user at 12:37 PM on July 17, 2018 [3 favorites]


I've got some bad news about that.

Oh. That's not even the author, we don't even need to claim the death of him.

It doesn't even rise to the level of Ridley Scott vs. the writer and everyone else involved in the production of blade runner.
posted by pan at 12:48 PM on July 17, 2018 [8 favorites]


And with that, the war on Christmas is finally over.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:50 PM on July 17, 2018 [5 favorites]


We never see Theo acting through direct violence
Doesn't Theo shoot the guard at the front desk?
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 12:55 PM on July 17, 2018


Related: Feminist pop-culture writer Donna Dickens recently wrote about watching Die Hard for the first time, and finding that (to her mild surprise) it holds up without nostalgia.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:06 PM on July 17, 2018 [7 favorites]


Doesn't Theo shoot the guard at the front desk?

I believe it was the other goon that Theo walked in with who did the deed. Theo took visible delight in it, though.
posted by brundlefly at 1:14 PM on July 17, 2018 [2 favorites]


I think the Huey-Lewis-looking dude is the guy that shoots the desk guard (and then takes his place).
posted by hanov3r at 1:26 PM on July 17, 2018 [4 favorites]


Theo took visible delight in it, though.
Thanks, that's probably what I'm remembering.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 1:37 PM on July 17, 2018


Theo takes delight in making sports references when someone is killed. When Eddie shoots the guard, he cries, "Boom! Two points!"

When the LAPD vehicle is hit by the RPG, he chortles, "And the quarterback is toast!"

Theo is an ass.
posted by linux at 1:40 PM on July 17, 2018 [6 favorites]


Well, he wasn't brought along for his charming personality.
posted by brundlefly at 1:43 PM on July 17, 2018 [34 favorites]


I have spent the last 28 years thinking that Clarence Gilyard, who played Theo, also played Jonesy the sonar tech in "Hunt for Red October". I'd like to express my public apology to both Mr. Gilyard and to Courtney B. Vance for confusing them for each other.
posted by hanov3r at 1:48 PM on July 17, 2018 [1 favorite]


Metafilter: Am I trolling? I don’t even know any more.
posted by lumpenprole at 2:41 PM on July 17, 2018 [11 favorites]


Theo may be an ass, but he has fun.
posted by maxsparber at 3:05 PM on July 17, 2018


I have spent the last 28 years thinking that Clarence Gilyard, who played Theo, also played Jonesy the sonar tech in "Hunt for Red October". I'd like to express my public apology to both Mr. Gilyard and to Courtney B. Vance for confusing them for each other.

Yippee ki-yay, mother Russia.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:25 PM on July 17, 2018 [7 favorites]


I learned the other day that the actor who “played” Vigo the Carpathian in Ghostbusters 2 is also one of the goons in Die Hard.
posted by gucci mane at 5:17 PM on July 17, 2018


"[F]ar from being a gung-ho action man, John McClane is a man who is scared shitless."

And this, right here, is why the Die Hard sequels just can't compare to the original. At some level, McClane has learned that he *can* survive utterly horrifying violence; by the latest sequel, he's done so many, many times. After the first movie, the character was never again out of his depth - and that's a damned shame.
posted by Mr. Excellent at 5:52 PM on July 17, 2018 [10 favorites]


Vigo the Carpathian in Ghostbusters 2 is also one of the goons in Die Hard

I would watch this crossover episode.
posted by Kadin2048 at 6:08 PM on July 17, 2018 [2 favorites]


I didn't know Ripley's first name, actually I didn't know she HAD a first name.
posted by Pembquist at 6:46 PM on July 17, 2018


Also, how old are all you Die Hard 1 enthusiasts? I ask because I think I saw it first age 30 which would have been about 5 years after it opened and It didn't make the big impression on me that it obviously has on a lot of people and I am wondering if any of that has to do with the phenomena of enjoying novelty in music when younger and not when older which while not universal seems to be a thing...at least I read about it being.....somewhere.

I do kind of remember it being a big change from moonlighting which was a kind of "huh!" moment for me, like watching Michael Chiklis from The Commish going all hyper masculine dubious morality charisma in The Shield and realizing through the dolt fog that "oh right they are actors aren't they?" Beyond that kind of epiphany type thing it didn't seem like anything great, competent sure, but It gets no squeee! from me and I am completely susceptible usually.

I liked seeing Bruce Willis in Nobody's Fool.

Also I never new Ripley even had a first name let alone what it was.
posted by Pembquist at 7:10 PM on July 17, 2018


I was 25 when it came out. It didn't change my life or anything, but yeah, I do love it. Interestingly, the article points out a lot of the things I like most about it, even though I had never framed those points to myself in the same way. So I really enjoyed her essay.

But then again, I'm one of those old people who still likes novelty in music.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 7:26 PM on July 17, 2018 [2 favorites]


I was three years old when it came out. I first saw it probably ten years ago? I'd have been in my mind twenties. I loved it way more than I expected to - it's definitely in my personal top ten movies. I just couldn't believe how tightly constructed it was.
posted by potrzebie at 7:35 PM on July 17, 2018


Great essay and also explains why Bob's Burgers was right to mash up Die Hard and Working Girl
posted by nubs at 7:51 PM on July 17, 2018 [1 favorite]


I find this an odd and interesting lens through which to view this particular movie, but it's a convincing article.

I just had HBO deliver to me a Die Hard Trilogy marathon to me the other night, but I didn't get through to the end of Die Hard 3 because late and tired. But 1 was fun, and 2 is such a total fucking mess (but Dennis Franz!), and then 3 becomes something wonderful (but I've seen it multiple times and the last 1/3 is a total mess).
posted by hippybear at 8:07 PM on July 17, 2018 [1 favorite]


I don't care that Bruce Willis says Die Hard isn't a Christmas movie just like I don't care how Steve Wilhite pronouces GIF.

This link totally nails what I love about Die Hard. Action movies tend to be "dude gets into trouble then is fearless beefcake the end" but there's some actual character development here. Not like it's Shakespeare or whatever but it has more to it than the typical action movie, which is usually a lot to ask for an action movie, and that blends into a good flick. I actually remember being disappointed there wasn't more with Holly by the end the first time I saw it because it was clear she was a ass-kicking human being too but she didn't luck out by being in the bathroom when shit went down.
posted by DyRE at 2:13 AM on July 18, 2018 [3 favorites]


Yeah, the action scenes are good, but it's a well-written and well-directed film, with so many little moments of great acting--Takagi being interrogated, Ellis thinking he's smart, Max and Hans arguing about strategy, that one scene with the reporter and housekeeper that makes you feel no sympathy for him when he gets clocked... My favorite scene is the one when Hans and John finally meet. Hans' pretend terror is so, so funny.

This article was not what I thought it would be, and I liked it. When the "no more table" guy told John that he shouldn't hesitate, was he mansplaining murder?
posted by heatvision at 2:53 AM on July 18, 2018 [2 favorites]


Die Hard 2 was actually a repurposed Commando 2 script, and Die Hard 3 was a repurposed script originally titled "Simon Says"

That first fact to me explains so much about DH2
posted by RustyBrooks at 7:32 AM on July 18, 2018


IIRC there has never been a Die Hard movie that began its development as a Die Hard movie.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 7:45 AM on July 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


Die Hard 2 was actually a repurposed Commando 2 script

That makes so much sense! I was thinking last night about this article, and how (to me) a large part of why Die Hard works is because of the casting; it's important to remember, for those coming to the movie years after, that Bruce Willis was not an action star when Die Hard was made. In fact, there was an initial backlash against the casting, because Bruce Willis - a comedic actor best known for Moonlighting at the time - was not yet considered an action star. Action movies were the domain of Stallone and Schwarzenegger. So the fact that DH2 - which plays more like a traditional action film and starts of the process of John McClane becoming just another action hero - was actually intended as a Schwarzenegger vehicle - makes so much sense.

But because Die Hard focuses in on making McClane an "everyperson" - frightened, fragile (in the sense that he takes damage throughout the movie and the effects linger), vulnerable - the casting of a traditional action star would not have worked at all; the audience would have rejected Stallone walking around on cut feet, bruised and battered. "I don't have time to bleed" was an actual line from an actual Schwarzenegger movie released the year prior. So casting Bruce Willis actually made this movie possible, I think, along with the reading being applied in the essay, because anyone else was likely too testosterone-driven to enable a "feminist" action film where the hero grapples with the real physical and emotional consequences of the situation they are in.

The other piece of brilliant casting was Alan Rickman; his first film, and largely unknown to the American audience. Rickman was a brilliant actor, of course, but I also think the fact that he was unknown allowed him to make Hans Gruber into Hans Gruber; there was no expectation of "type" for both the villain and the hero, because Willis was playing against his perceived type and Rickman had no type at all in anyone's mindset. Hence you could have a movie in which the main villain compliments a man's suit, describes his love of models, is knowledgeable ("Golden Dawn?"/"I read about them in Time magazine"); meticulous, and menacing.

A hero is only as good as their villain, and none of the subsequent Die Hard films gave McClane a villain as good as Hans "I am an exceptional thief" Gruber.
posted by nubs at 9:15 AM on July 18, 2018 [6 favorites]


Ellen.
posted by Scattercat at 2:29 PM on July 18, 2018


I never used to watch action movies so I never saw Die Hard when it came out and mentally lumped it in with all the Stallone/Schwarzenegger stuff. A few years ago my husband convinced me to give it a go and to my surprise (but not his) I loved it. McClane is just a guy with bare feet and half a plan, his estranged wife seems like someone worth getting back together with but was clearly doing fine on her own as well, Hans Gruber is up there with some of Rickman's best characters, and it wasn't at all predictable.

The article is so spot-on with all the best parts of the movie, especially here: "The day is saved, instead, through John’s developing communication skills, his asking for help, and relationship-building." I want more action movies like this, please!
posted by harriet vane at 3:45 AM on July 19, 2018 [1 favorite]


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