Die Hard
From Includipedia, the inclusionist encyclopedia
Die Hard is an American action film released in 1988. It was written by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza, stars Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, Alan Rickman, Reginald VelJohnson and William Atherton, and was directed by John McTiernan. A huge critical and commercial success, Die Hard propelled Willis' film career and established Rickman as a popular portrayer of villains in American film.
The movie is based on a 1979 novel by Roderick Thorp titled Nothing Lasts Forever, itself a sequel to the book The Detective, which was previously made into a 1968 movie starring Frank Sinatra.
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[edit] Plot
John McClane, a detective with the New York City Police Department, arrives in Los Angeles to attempt a Christmas reunion with his estranged wife Holly. He is taken by limousine driver Argyle to her workplace, the high-rise Nakatomi Plaza. While Argyle waits in the building's parking garage, McClane joins the Nakatomi Christmas party where he finds Holly and they immediately get into an argument over her use of her maiden name Gennaro. Holly leaves McClane in a small room near the party.
A gang led by the suave German terrorist Hans Gruber invades and secures the building, under the pretence of gaining the release of various terrorist operatives. The party-goers are subdued and it is revealed that the group are actually thieves; they plan to use the false terrorist crisis to cover their theft of millions of dollars in bearer bonds from the building's security vault. Theo, the gang's technical mastermind, begins disabling the sequential vault locks, warning Gruber that the final electro-magnetic based lock will be impossible to bypass.
McClane manages to slip away during the round-up of the party-goers, albeit without his shoes. His attempt to summon help via the building's fire alarm brings him into confrontation with gang member Tony. Tony is killed, prompting the man's vengeful brother, Karl, to lead a hunt for the police officer throughout the building. McClane convinces a Los Angeles Police Department radio-operator to send a patrol unit to Nakatomi, then secures the attention of responding officer Al Powell by dropping the body of one of his pursuers onto the officer's car. He also takes a collection of C4 explosives and detonators off the body of another gangmember.
The LAPD responds in force, but this merely accelerates Gruber's timetable. With the police led by the incompetent Deputy Chief Dwayne Robinson, Powell quickly proves to be McClane's only useful ally outside the building. A SWAT team and an armored reconnaissance vehicle are easily and brutally repelled, to which McClane retaliates by bombing two of Gruber's men along with an entire floor of the building with some of the C4.
An incensed Gruber orders Karl to track McClane down and recover the detonators while Gruber goes up to the roof access, where he finds himself in an unexpected face-to-face confrontation with McClane. Gruber attempts to pass himself off as a hostage; the ruse is distraction enough that Karl and his team surprise McClane in an ambush. McClane kills more gang-members but is forced to flee, leaving behind the detonators and severely injuring his feet. As he tends his wounds, Powell tells him via radio how he had recently shot a youth "armed" with a toy gun; his grief has him heading for a career as a desk officer.
Outside, the FBI arrives on the scene in the form of two swaggering agents. The duo order the building's power be cut, which serves only to deactivate the final lock on the building's vault, just as Gruber had planned. He "negotiates" with the FBI to release the hostages on the rooftop via helicopter. The agents plan to double cross the "terrorists" with a surprise gunship attack (with little regard to the hostages' welfare), while Gruber in fact is planning his own treachery; using the C4 to destroy the entire upper structure of the building, killing all the hostages and covering the gang's escape.
McClane investigates the roof access, wondering about Gruber's earlier presence in that area. Just as he discovers the primed C4, he is attacked by Karl. After a vicious battle, McClane leaves Karl hanging from a heavy chain. Back outside the building, an irresponsible TV reporter named Richard Thornburg accidentally alerts Gruber to the fact that Holly is McClane's wife. He takes her aside as a special hostage as his remaining men raid the vault and Theo goes to the parking garage to prepare the gang's getaway ambulance. Argyle, who has kept up with events via his limo's radio, rams the vehicle with his limousine and punches Theo unconscious.
McClane storms the roof and drives the hostages back down to safety. The FBI agents mistake McClane for a terrorist and fire at him, while Gruber proceeds with the C4 detonation. McClane escapes the blast by jumping over the side of the building with a fire hose tied around his waist, and shooting his way in through a window a couple of stories down. The gunship crew, including both FBI agents, are killed.
A battered McClane confronts Gruber one last time high up in the tower, with Holly being held at gunpoint. McClane tricks Gruber with a faked surrender and shoots the villain, who falls thirty stories to his death. As McClane and his wife leave the building, the seemingly-indestructible Karl reappears one last time, only to be gunned down by Powell. Holly and John are approached by Thornburg, still relentlessly angling for a fresh scoop. Holly punches the reporter and the couple departs the scene in Argyle's battered limo.
[edit] Cast
| Actor | Role | Killed | Job | Cause of Death |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bruce Willis | John McClane | Tony, Henrich, Franco, Marco, Another Gangmember, Hans, Eddie | NYPD Detective | |
| Alan Rickman | Hans Gruber | Joseph Yoshinobo Takagi, Harry Ellis, FBI Agent Johnson, FBI Special Agent Johnson, and the Gunship Crew | Terrorist leader | Shot and fell to death |
| Bonnie Bedelia | Holly Gennero McClane | Job at Nakatomi Plaza | ||
| Reginald VelJohnson | Al Powell | Karl | LAPD Sergeant | |
| Alexander Godunov | Karl | Terrorist | Killed by Al Powell | |
| Paul Gleason | Deputy Police Chief Dwayne T. Robinson | LAPD Deputy Chief Police | ||
| William Atherton | Richard Thornburg | Reporter | ||
| De'voreaux White | Argyle | Theo | Limo Driver | |
| Hart Bochner | Harry Ellis | Murdered by Hans Gruber | ||
| James Shigeta | Joseph Yoshinobo Takagi | CEO of Nakatomi Plaza | Murdered by Hans Gruber | |
| Dennis Hayden | Eddie | Terrorist | Killed by McClane | |
| Clarence Gilyard Jr. | Theo | Terrorist Computer Expert | Knocked out by Argyle | |
| Bruno Doyon | Franco | Terrorist | Killed by McClane | |
| Andreas Wisniewski | Tony | Terrorist | Killed by McClane | |
| Al Leong | Uli | Terrorist | Killed by McClane | |
| Robert Davi | FBI Special Agent Johnson | FBI Special Agent | Killed in explosion by Gruber | |
| Grand L. Bush | FBI Agent Johnson | FBI Agent | Killed in Explosion by Gruber |
[edit] Production
- The Nakatomi building is actually Twentieth Century Fox headquarters, and the company charged itself rent for use of the (unfinished) building as if the production were simply another tenant of the building, as well as damages for the destruction of the sidewalk guardrail destroyed by the LAPD armored personnel carrier.[1]
- In the German dub, the names and backgrounds of the German-born terrorists were changed into English forms (mostly into their British equivalents): Hans became Jack, Karl became Charlie, Heinrich turned into Henry [2]. The new background depicts them as Irish terrorists having gone freelance and for profit rather than ideals.[citation needed] This was because German terrorism (especially by the Rote Armee Fraktion) was still considered a sensitive issue by the German government in the 1980s.
- According to commentary from the movie's DVD release, Alan Rickman's surprise when Gruber is dropped from the building is genuine: the director chose to release Rickman a full second before he expected it in order to get genuine surprise, a move which angered Rickman. The text commentary track also reveals that the shooting script did not originally feature the meeting between McClane and Gruber pretending to be a hostage; it was only written in when it was discovered that Rickman could do an American accent.
- Whenever Gruber fires his weapon, the scene cuts away. McTiernan did this to avoid showing Rickman's involuntary habit of flinching when the gun recoiled.[3]
- Die Hard was renamed Big Building Fight in Thailand. In Spain, it was renamed La Jungla de Cristal (The Glass Jungle). In Latin America it was renamed Duro de Matar (Hard to Kill). In Russia film was named Крепкий Орешек (A Hard Nut to Crack). In Poland it was named Szklana Pułapka (The Glass Trap). In Portugal it was named Assalto ao Arranha-Céus (Assault to the Skyscraper). In Norway it was named Aksjon Skyskraper at first, but was later changed to its original name. In France, it was named Piège de Cristal (The Crystal Trap). In Yugoslavia, the film was named Umri Muški (Die like a Man). In Romania, it was renamed "Greu de ucis" ("Hard To Kill", like the Latin American title). In Finland, the film was named "Vain kuolleen ruumiini yli" ("Only over my dead body"). In Germany, the title was "Stirb langsam" ("Die slowly"). The Hungarian title was "Drágán add az életed" ("Pay them hardly for your life"). In Estonia, the title was translated to "Visa Hing" ("Sturdy Soul").
[edit] Music
Though composer Michael Kamen is credited for scoring the film, the conclusion at the bottom of Nakatomi Plaza where the character Karl reappears with a Steyr AUG rifle, only to be killed by a very surprised Sergeant Powell, features a cut from the 1986 sci-fi action movie Aliens composed by James Horner. The music can be found on the Aliens soundtrack titled "Resolution and Hyperspace". Both Die Hard and Aliens are released through Twentieth Century Fox.
[edit] Reception
When Die Hard was released, it was considered one of the best action films of its era. This is probably in part due to the fact that there are few artificial plot points in the story. It is noted for including humor as a complement to the action and dramatic elements of the story. It is said to have reinvented the action genre and set the stage for 90s action/thriller movies such as Under Siege, Passenger 57 and Speed. "Die Hard on a _____" became a common way to describe the plot of many of the action films that came in its wake. For example, for the 1990s action flick, Speed, was called "Die Hard on a bus"[4] The movie was also responsible for creating the "action star" archetype that is a far more fallible and human hero, wearing few pieces of clothing, speaking few words (including "one-liners") and always having a rough look across their face.[5] Die Hard grossed $80,707,729 at the U.S. Box Office.[6]
It was highly acclaimed by critics[7] and spawned three popular sequels: Die Hard 2 (1990), Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) and Live Free or Die Hard (2007), all featuring Willis as McClane.
Die Hard was listed at #39 on the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills list of the most thrilling American movies of all time in 2001.
In 2003, Hans Gruber was listed at #46 on the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains special.
John McClane's infamous line "Yippee ki yay, motherfucker" was voted as #96 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere magazine in 2007.
In the June 22 2007 issue of Entertainment Weekly, it was named the best action movie of all time.[8]
[edit] Video games
A number of video games based on the Die Hard series of films have been made, including Die Hard Trilogy, Die Hard Trilogy 2: Viva Las Vegas, Die Hard Arcade, Die Hard: Vendetta and Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza. There was also a NES video game based on the original movie.
[edit] Sequels
- Die Hard 2 (1990)
- Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995)
- Live Free or Die Hard (also known as Die Hard 4.0) (2007)
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Trivia for Die Hard. Retrieved on 2007-07-04.
- ^ Schnittberichte - Stirb Langsam. Retrieved on 2007-10-12.
- ^ Trivia for Die Hard. Retrieved on 2007-07-04.
- ^ http://www.foxhome.com/diehard/trinity/dh1/
- ^ The Movies of the Eighties (1990) by Ron Base and David Haslam.
- ^ Yahoo! Die Hard Movie Details
- ^ RottenTomatoes Aggregated Film Reviews
- ^ "Die Hard" tops magazine list of best action films. Reuters.
[edit] External links
- Die Hard at the Internet Movie Database
- Die Hard at Rotten Tomatoes
- Script
- Movies Influenced By Die Hard
- Die Hard Trailer
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de:Stirb langsam es:Die Hard fr:Piège de cristal hr:Umri muški is:Die Hard it:Trappola di cristallo he:מת לחיות hu:Drágán add az életed! nl:Die Hard ja:ダイ・ハード no:Die Hard pl:Szklana pułapka pt:Die Hard ru:Крепкий орешек (фильм, 1988) sr:Умри мушки fi:Die Hard – vain kuolleen ruumiini yli sv:Die Hard tr:Zor Ölüm (film) zh:終極警探
Categories: All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since June 2007 | Articles with invalid date parameter in template | 1988 films | 20th Century Fox films | Action thriller films | American films | Christmas films | Die Hard films | Heist films | English-language films | Films based on thriller books | Films directed by John McTiernan | Films about terrorism | Films shot anamorphically | Terrorism in fiction
