Heart and the ability to surprise make "Die Hard" a gem among action movies

Rating: 9/10 (31 January 2015)

The very best action movies are the ones in which the heroes are like us. As fun as a good James Bond movie can be, his been-there, done- that demeanor can't help but put a low ceiling on the stakes. But when the star is more or less an average person swept into a crisis unwilling and unprepared, there is a sense, however artificial, that anything might happen. There is also the possibility that the character will exhibit real emotional range. Deep into "Die Hard," after Bruce Willis's John McClane has wasted over half a dozen terrorists and proved himself a master of gunplay, explosives, and witty repartee many times over, his voice still cracks with fear and heartache. That humanity, buried only shallowly below the swagger and the caked blood (lots of blood), is no small part of the movie's successful formula.
Another is its ability to create surprises between the inevitable moments that define the genre. The fact that bad guys waste their advantage over McClane by toying with him instead of shooting him outright, and that he uses each such reprieve to regain the upper hand, is a given. But there are several situations that seem entirely fresh. Alan Rickman's criminal mastermind, a man of ambiguous motivations, mercurial identity, and palpable confidence, finds himself unexpectedly in McClane's hands. Because the movie has been so carefully plotted and has kept McClane largely isolated from friends and foes alike, this is the first time the two stars have come face to face. We know the bad guy recognizes McClane, but we do not know what McClane knows. The movie seems to move in slow motion for several moments as this inventive situation plays out.
The supporting cast is a veritable parade of cynical expectations and pleasant subversions thereof. Two seemingly expendable black characters, a chauffeur and a cop, show up early in the movie. The cop, Al (Reginald VelJohnson), even mentions a pregnant wife. We've heard this kind of thing before; in a more typical movie, one or both of them would bite the bullet as a way to create quick pathos. But just when they seem to be on the cusp of ignoble sacrifice or of missing the chance to call for backup, leaving McClane alone and outnumbered for maximum heroism, things get interesting instead. The chauffeur hunkers down in the garage for a long while before coming back into play in a modest way, but Al dodges certain death to become McClane's partner-at-large. "Die Hard" is not normally remembered as a buddy cop movie, but in large measure it is. The dynamic that "Lethal Weapon" defined plays out almost to a tee as the Al and McClane bond over their wives and their careers. The homoerotic dimension of the genre is present, too; McClane and Al's hug at the end is even more emotionally charged than McClane and his wife's. After that, the trope of the bad guy coming back for one last shot happens exactly as it does in Mel Gibson and Danny Glover's earlier film, which like "Die Hard" takes place during Christmas. But "Die Hard," not to be outdone, finds yet a third emotional beat to finish on. McClane's wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) is a strong and central figure throughout the movie, which makes a socially-conscious statement about women in the workplace and never places her in sexualized peril. Appropriately but still surprisingly, it is Holly who gets the final word. Also appropriately, she delivers it with her fist.
Not everything about the film is as brilliantly-conceived as McClane's explosive romp through the Nakatomi Plaza or his vulnerable, equitable relationships with his wife and his colleague. The movie continues an action movie legacy of paranoia established at least as long ago as "Dirty Harry." The press and law enforcement bureaucracy are cast as self-interested bumblers, as dangerous in their way as the murderous criminals. It's not an unreasonable position to take, but it's unreasonable to think that a hostage negotiator would be as distracted and preening as Paul Gleason's character, or that an FBI big-shot would be as evidently unstable as Robert Davi's. The casting is right, and these skilled actors' shifty faces could have spoken for themselves without so much on-the-nose dialogue.
This, though, is a quibble. Too much about the movie works, too much is surprising, too many characters are likable and reasonably real, to conclude that "Die Hard" is anything less than one of the best action films ever made. I want to watch it again the minute the classical credit music ends, and that's a rare impulse for me irrespective of genre.