“Hans’s dead, baby, Hans’s dead.”
The other night I watched the seminal Christmas classic Die Hard with my family for the very first time. I’d never seen the movie before, somehow, despite everyone I know telling me that I need to watch it. Normally, when enough people tell me to do something, I ignore them. But this time was different, and I finally sat down to watch it.
I won’t lie, my expectations were low. In case you haven’t read my list of favorite things, I don’t really like action movies. I don’t keep up with the exploits of Arnold, Sylvester, Dwayne, and their ilk. The only other movie I could remember seeing that had Bruce Willis in it was Pulp Fiction. Well, and The Sixth Sense.
The last action movie I watched was Predator, and not the new one. It was the old one, with the governor of California and those bizarre jokes. And the only reason I watched that one was because I’d already seen the Alien vs. Predator tie-in movies, and I felt compelled to watch the original. It was a good movie, I guess, but for the wrong reasons, and set the bar pretty low for any other action movie I could watch.
And I have to admit, Die Hard exceeded my expectations for all the right reasons.
Just so you know, there’s going to be a few spoilers for parts of the movie. But, considering that, holy shit, Die Hard is 30 years old this year, hopefully no one is too surprised.
I like to focus on the story aspect of things more than anything else, which always makes watching action movies difficult, but Die Hard did a pretty good job of making it interesting. Although there are several plot holes and several plot holes that actually aren’t plot holes, Die Hard consistently does a good job of making the stakes feel real and intense. The bargaining scene between the coked-out Ellis and Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber was easily one of the most intense moments I’ve seen in recent memory. It was also one of the best moments of character development in the entire film, besides the fact that it let Alan Rickman be one of the scariest people in the film.
That scene in particular stands out to me as a great example of what the movie does so right. Besides building tension by introducing new twists, the movie deepens the development of characters in interesting ways, especially in the dialogue between Bruce Willis’s John McClane and Hans Gruber. Their conversations and one-liners throughout the film are definitely the heart of the dialogue and what make their scenes so memorable. That iconic callback to “Yippee-ki-yay motherfucker” at the end of the movie tied all the dialogue up so nicely; I was genuinely surprised by the quality of the writing.
And that callback is another part of what makes the movie different from other action movies. Besides the dialogue, I think what surprised me the most about Die Hard was the sense of continuity that the film built. Characters reference past events, John McClane keeps his wounds and gets noticeably more hurt throughout the film, and some of the characters actually have to reload their weapons from time to time.
The best example of this continuity, for me, is in Bruce Willis’s wounds. He starts the movie out clean-cut and healthy, but by the end he’s a limping, shaking wreck, barely in better shape than the now-deceased Hans himself. It’s John McClane’s wife who ends up punching the annoying reporter in the mouth, not John himself. Which, besides allowing the movie to bring the romantic subplot to a satisfying conclusion, also makes John McClane feel more like a real character who went through hell and back.
Another great example of this continuity is in the character of Karl Vreski, or “Angry European #1,” as I knew him. Once John McClane kills the first terrorist (whose name was apparently Tony), Karl’s out for blood. This is because, as I learned later, Karl and Tony were brothers. And this plot point remains consistent throughout the film; besides giving the movie a good excuse for Karl not to outright shoot John McClane, it also makes Karl getting shot by Sargent Powell all the more cathartic, especially since that scene also brings a close to the subplot between Powell and McClane.
That continuity allows the film to develop its central characters so effectively, which brings everything full circle again. Alan Rickman and Bruce Willis play off each other so well that I was able to ignore some of the more glaring errors in their walkie-talkie relationship. It’s exciting to watch, even when there isn’t a gunfight, just to hear the dialogue that the characters are going to share. Because each line is either a classic one-liner or a masterful use of dialogue to construct tension and exposition. For the most part, at least.
While I can talk forever about the virtues of the dialogue in this movie, and the way that the movie uses both that dialogue and continuity to make a story that feels like a real, concrete event instead of some insane power fantasy, I’d be remiss to ignore some of the issues with the film. The character of Holly, McClane’s wife, is strong and capable, but she doesn’t get enough screen time. I would have liked to see a deeper development of her character, perhaps through radio in the same way that the movie builds McClane, Powell, and Gruber.
Besides Holly, the pregnant lady that gets brought up twice near the beginning of the film doesn’t make an appearance again, and feels kind of forgotten. As is the scene of McClane keeping track of the numbers and names of the terrorists on his arm. I would have loved to see more of McClane’s supposed police training come out in the form of some sort of detailed reconnaissance and use of the information he’s gathered. Something besides just relaying it to the useless police chief on the ground. Even seeing McClane add names as he learns them and then crossing them off would have been good. And there’s also Argyle. I would’ve liked to see more of him, too.
At the end of the day, though, despite its missteps, what the movie does well still stands out pretty clearly. And overall, what it does well is be an action movie; whatever I say about its writing, it isn’t Birdman or Dead Poets Society. It didn’t win an Oscar, and it was never trying to. It’s a wild, cowboy-style romp about shooting terrorists in the face. It keeps the action coming, throughout the entire movie. All my continuity just serves to keep it grounded, keep the tension rising. And that rising tension fuels more and more action and bigger and bigger explosions. Which is a great thing for the movie.
If you want to watch a movie that’s got explosions and buff dudes stopping Severus Snape from stealing money, Die Hard is perhaps the best choice possible. If you want a dramatic character study of the inner workings of a terrorist, this isn’t the film you’re looking for. But that’s okay. No one wanted it to be that, and I’m glad that it isn’t. It’s a fun movie, and it’s got more than enough redeeming qualities to hold it up against the test of time. And more than enough redeeming qualities that, even if you don’t like action movies, it’s worth a watch.
Yippee-ki-yay.
Your post made me google Karl. Read his info on Wiki. Very interesting life story! And I love Die Hard.