The most influential action film of the last half-century

Rating: 10/10 (21 August 2005)

Die Hard had an unusual history before it even reached the screen.
In the Sixties, author Roderick Thorp wrote a novel, The Detective, which was turned into a movie, starring Frank Sinatra in the title role of Joe Leland. A sequel, Nothing Lasts Forever, was written, in which Joe becomes trapped in the Claxxon Oil Corporation skyscraper after it is taken over by German terrorists and he has to rescue his daughter. Frank Sinatra was contractually allowed to consider (and pass) on making that sequel, an adaptation written by Jeb Stuart. Then Steven E. De Souza was brought on board and he turned the Nothing Lasts Forever screenplay into Die Hard. The skyscraper became Nakatomi, the daughter became the wife, Leland became John McClane and several other actors, including Richard Gere and Clint Eastwood turned down the role until it landed with Bruce Willis.
To say that Die Hard sets new standards for action movies is like calling Bill Gates modestly wealthy. The movie was so innovative and groundbreaking that dozens of rip-offs followed - Passenger 57, Under Siege, Cliffhanger, Sudden Death, et al. Hostage/terrorist movies were all the rage in the early Nineties.
Very few came close, because Die Hard had so many strong points, not least of which was Alan Rickman's cold performance, as Hans Gruber - also the name of the villain in Our Man Flint - the classically educated, smartly dressed terrorist leader. Gruber would have been well at home on Wall Street.
His plan is to break into the vault on the 30th floor of the Nakatomi Plaza and take away $640million in negotiable bearer bonds. When he and his 12 European henchmen round up the office workers, who are enjoying a Christmas Eve party, one man slips away unnoticed. He is John McClane, a New York cop who has come to LA to settle down with his estranged wife, Holly (Bonnie Bedelia). The odds are against him. But that's just the way he likes it.
In his battle to save his Holly, McClane is scorched, torched, beaten, and blown up. He jumps off the roof and falls through air ducts. He uncovers deception and double-crosses, and picks broken glass out of his bare feet. No help comes from the naive and incompetent police, who are unable to get inside, and even less so from the overconfident FBI.
McClane is not a supercop. He is an ordinary guy, who doesn't want a fight. When he is shot, he bleeds, he hurts. All he has are his pants, his vest, his gun - which does not have infinite ammo. This is a realistic connection the audience can identify with and helps to project yourself into the movie. When you don't want to be in McClane's position, it makes for much excitement.
John McTiernan, who's only previous mainstream movie was Predator, uses awesome photography and technical skills to give the film a truly polished and sophisticated look that has become his signature style - it was nominated for four technical Academy Awards. He also allows for enough time for decent character development with arcs for multiple side-characters, most of which comes between McClane and a cop (Reginald Veljohnson) he makes friends with on a CB radio.
Die Hard manages to be exciting every single time. It's lost some of it's respect in recent years as action films, post-1999, had tried endlessly to imitate The Matrix and use digital effects in place of real stunts and worse so since 2010 with the endless, tiresome, mind-numbing over-abundance of comic book movies filled with impossible physics, which is a really big loss and signalled the beginning of the end of the true, tough guy action film.