A new kind of heroes, a new kind of villains, a new kind of action films ...

Rating: 10/10 (31 October 2011)

"Under Siege", "Air Force One", "Cliffhanger" or "Passenger 57"...no action film was like "Die Hard" before and every action film was like it after: this is the definition of a milestone. And this privileged status has been conquered by John McTiernan, in 1988, through one  no, two masterstrokes : the casting of Bruce Willis as Detective John McClane and Alan Rickman as his archenemy, Hans Gruber.
All the Oscar-nominated special effects of the world, spectacular sequences or heart-pounding gun-pointing moments would have been equally worthless if we had to deal with a one-dimensional villain or a heroic killing-machine à la Stallone or Schwarzenegger. No disrespect for Arnie, but his decision to turn down John's part is probably one of greatest blessings of cinema's history, if only for launching the cinematic career of Bruce Willis. But there's more to say in this casting that justifies the iconic status of "Die Hard".
Bruce Willis introduced a new kind of hero, combining the strength of a regular cop who's been doing that since eleven years, and the qualities of a regular man, with a wife and children. He's charming, but not a womanizer, he's strong but hates to risking a neck-break, he cares for his family, for innocent people and for his duty, but his wisecracking attitude doesn't befit his deeply noble nature. And he has a strange habit to talk to himself, just like we might talk to him, if we could. John McClane is what we could call a buddy-hero, one that immediately inspires sympathy. Any regular guy would like him because he's not an intrepid adventurer like Indiana Jones or the playboy who gets all the chicks like James Bond, and more interestingly, because everybody's against him, even the Police or the FBI. John McClane is the quintessential guy at the wrong place and the wrong moment, the pebble in the shoe, the pain in the ass, whom no one seems to give a break... and if only for that, we identify with him.
John McClane is indeed one of the greatest movie heroes, and if this is too pompous a superlative for him, let's say one of the coolest.
And for a new kind of hero, the movie needed a new kind of villain. And here comes the suave and charming Hans Gruber, a man who uses his sophistication as a rhetoric trick to hide the true evil and menacing side of his nature. At one part, no one would dare to challenge his opinion on Gruber, for a guy who could lead such a bunch of cold-blooded killers, had to be at least twice more determined and violent than the most violent of them, Carl his sidekick, to name him. As soon as his gun is pointed at you and if you don't have weapons, you're already dead, and be careful if he compliments your suits, it might mean that he'd hate to make some holes in. Hans Gruber, rightfully nominated #46 in AFI's Top 50 Villains, is the kind of villains that would have made Hitchcock very proud, and from Lecter in 1991 to Landa in 2009, a few villains of the last years would lack this mix of suaveness and cruelty.
Hans Gruber's influence on villains' characterizations is undeniable and Alan Rickman steals the show in an Oscar-worthy supporting performance, his eyes language is so powerful that most of his reactions could pass for genuinely authentic.
But does it take only two iconic characters to make a film? Yes and no. Yes, because once you have the characters, and you define their personalities, their interactions and dynamics will provide enough material for the script. From a memorable "Now I have a Machine Gun Ho- Ho-Ho" or the "Yippie-Ki-Yay" catchphrase, the conflict between a regular guy and a foreign mastermind is a cinematic delight. But again, Hans is such an extraordinary character that he even takes distance from his role as the big villain, admitting he borrows more of his knowledge from stuff read in Forbes, or Time. And no, because the movie still needs a story, a back-story, about McClane, his family, to paint him with the brush of realism; there's a scene where he has a breakdown with his only trust-worthy friend and partner (Sgt. Powell, played by Reginald VelJohnson) where McClane takes this unique dimension I was mentioning before. Could you imagine Arnie crying like this?
There's also this constant originality in the film that makes every single scene memorable. Action is never for the sake of it, after several viewings, you understand exactly what John is doing and the whole process to save the hostages. And in the same time, we follow the Germans in that cat-and-mouse situation. John is indeed trapped like a mouse, with his vest and bare feet (another unique touch of the film) but sometimes, the mouse even when outnumbered, can use his cleverness, his reactivity, and courage to defeat the bad guys thanks to the surprise effect, and a little something that makes him such a hard nut to crack. Now, of course, the purists will criticize the Germans' accents, the unrealistic incompetence of the Deputy Chief of Police or some useless comedic relief moments, they wouldn't be totally wrong but when we're supposed to believe in a man able to fight a group of terrorist, couldn't we suspend our disbelief a little? This is not too much asking from a masterpiece of entertainment that paved the way to a new conception of hero and villains and a new generation of action movies, almost all of them can be tag-lined as "Die Hard in someplace".
Indeed, "Die Hard" gave its letter of nobility to 'pop-corn' and 'guy' movies to a point, I can imagine, a villain saying now, in a monologue "This time, John McClane won't come here to save the day "