Last updated on December 25, 2013
What can I say? I like Die Hard a whole lot.
Die Hard – If I had to take a poll for best Christmas film…and not necessarily one that merely seeks to tell stories about Christmas, then I think Die Hard might make the top of my list. Every few years, I simply get a hankering to watch Die Hard again, whether to see John McClane before he turned into a super hero (A Good Day to Die Hard is the worst), and Alan Rickman’s stunning take on Hans Gruber. The whole Joel Silver production rings like a perfect combination of setting, casting, script, cinematography, and just about every other element that makes for a great, exciting action film with genuine investment in the characters.
You know this primarily because the presentation appears so effortless in establishing McClane’s “everyman” status. He’s just a New York cop in the wrong place at the wrong time, chosen by fate to rise above his circumstances to save everyone or die trying. When he makes jokes, you’d probably try to make light of a trying situation as well. Of course, it being an alternately hilarious and brutal film could come off as an exercise in strange tonal divergence, but somehow Bruce Willis turns it into a realistic situation. When he says his famous “Yippee-ki yay” line, it actually makes sense in context (in a way it didn’t AT ALL in the later films). All of it develops the character and makes you root for him to succeed in the end.
There’s a hyper-reality to it all – does it seems likely that, with enough ingenuity, one guy could possibly take out a team of trained killers and terrorists both highly trained and highly armed? It says something about ourselves that we willingly accept the melodrama and lack of realism, interpreting it as a realistic take on the genre. We like our films this way because it can emphasize emotions where reality cannot – a valuable aspect of artistic works.
Having seen it so many times, you’d doubt that I could find something fresh, but I hadn’t even realized that there’s a second protagonist: Sgt. Al Powell. He’s the strange backbone to the whole movie, a cop who relegates himself to a desk job for a mistake for which he cannot forgive himself. Strangely enough, he vicariously experiences the whole ordeal through speaking to Roy/John, talking about their families and their experiences in life. It levels the playing ground, drawing the audience deeper into the story of an action film, no less! When Powell makes a fateful decision right at the end of the movie, you basically see all the loose thematic ends wrap up in a neat little bow. A skillful action movie can enthrall while also providing some depth, and Die Hard somehow does this too!
Many came after, but none surpassed the original. Years later, I am trying to think of a greater action film in the same vein and failing massively. If you haven’t watched it lately, or at all (and can handle R-rated stuff), then please watch it!
Die Hard 2: Die Harder – In the most unsurprising turn of events, Die Hard 2 isn’t as good as Die Hard the first.
The plot, taking place at an airport and involving the capture of a South American dictator (a la Manuel Noriega), certainly sounds interesting enough on paper. It hits all the same notes as the first Die Hard, with equal official bureaucratic obstruction and John McClane’s constant attempts to thwart the plans of the mercenaries/terrorists, or otherwise involved in the grand scheme.
The action sequences go right up to par, and the film takes its time, like the first. But I’m not sure if arguing with other people constitutes Die Hard’s best qualities, of which there is a LOT. Furthermore, the plot slides a little into craziness – how can these planes not contact other local airports? Did I miss something in the plot that prevents them from landing elsewhere? Doesn’t Washington D.C. have three different airports, thereby making the machinations here seem a bit silly? I guess you could justify it through the trope of “SNOWSTORM”, but to me it always felt like lazy writing.
Partly, the villains aren’t that great: opportunistic generals could work, and it did work in the case of Gruber, but there’s no sense of menace or megalomania. The people doing this operation just really like money while putting their skills to good use. While I imagine this works in the real world, here the guy doing a kata nude just doesn’t give me the same level of undeniable illusions of grandeur I expect (helpfully rectified by Die Hard with a Vengeance). Heck, I’d even say Live Free or Die Hard had a better antagonist, at least one I can vaguely remember who looked and felt slightly unhinged. These guys are just guys, not memorable characters.
And the setting also prevents that same sort of insularity. Our character isn’t alone, but surrounded by people who could potentially help. Their belligerence derives from McClane’s newfound celebrity as “that cop” rather than a police officer looking out for people. In other words, they act like jerks who won’t help for no good reason, and this arbitrary notions lets the writers set the plot pacing in a particular way. Frankly, I don’t think that’s smart writing at all. There’s better ways to do it (again, watch Die Hard With a Vengeance), but McClane gets no help “just because we say so” doesn’t go down quite as well.
When the final climax occurs, then, it’s not so much the end of a long, hard fought conflict but the resolution of these strange puzzle pieces. There’s no strange divisions of information, no need for the audience to pay attention – just action for action’s sake, at least by 1990s standards. Die Hard 2 never did it for me, and I am starting to think that it never will.
Final conclusion: I fell asleep during the middle part of the film the last time I watched it. Recommended for you also. Please tell me why I should like Die Hard 2 more.
