Viking Night: Die Hard
By Bruce Hall
December 30, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com
But what many people forget is that Die Hard wasn’t just a movie about Bruce Willis saving his marriage by kicking terrorist ass - it’s a Christmas movie about Bruce Willis saving his marriage by kicking terrorist ass. Die Hard taught us that crime doesn’t pay, love conquers all, and limousine rides are free when it’s narratively expedient. If there’s a better, more inspiring illustration of the meaning of Christmas, damned if I know what it is. So as the yuletide season wanes, I feel it appropriate to revisit one of our most cherished holiday classics. Just remember - every time Bruce Willis snaps a terrorist’s neck, an angel gets its wings.
Let us begin. Here are a few things we learn from the opening minutes of Die Hard.
First, it's apparently possible to sit next to someone on a plane for six hours and not say a word until you land, when they will turn to you and offer an unsolicited nugget of obvious foreshadowing. John McClane (WIllis) is a New York cop, which means he can carry a gun anywhere in America and use it to indiscriminately pump bullets into anyone he wants. Although this is certainly true today, it wasn’t back in 1988 - which makes him just that much more awesome. Also, you could still smoke in airports, and drinking while pregnant was apparently still a thing. McClane and his estranged wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) have two daughters (a totally lame son would be retconned in later), whom John does not enjoy answering expository questions about from nosy limo drivers who aren’t going to matter again until the third act.
These are all important things, but all you really need to remember is that McClane is an annoying prick who became jealous of his wife when she landed a posh gig at a major corporation, making four times his salary. Instead of riding the gravy train, he threw a fit, drove her off, and has now flown across a continent to continue the argument. Yes, this is your hero.
Fortunately, their discussion is interrupted by a gang of globetrotting terrorists, intent on spreading Christmas cheer (to themselves) by robbing Holly’s boss of $640 million. Sure, nobody told Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) and his mulleted band of Eurotrash henchmen that even back then, it might have been easier to steal that much money with a computer. But then you may not have lived long enough to see a member of the Royal Shakespeare company go toe to toe with a Seagram’s wine cooler salesman for control of both Nakatomi plaza AND Bonnie Bedelia’s impressive mountain of hair.
It almost seems foolish to opine about an iconic movie that’s had so much already written about it. But it also feels necessary. The intervening years have seen what was great about Die Hard fade considerably in light of its largely inferior sequels. If you’re old enough to remember (and I'm not saying I am), you will recall that at one time, action movies largely consisted of gigantic, mush-mouthed men covered with with muscles and ready with a grade school quality bon mot for every on screen fatality. By the late '80s, the “one man army” trope was a joke that told itself, and Die Hard - despite a handful of glaring imperfections - was a refreshing alternative.
John McClane was a sad sack whose abrasive personality seemed to ruin every relationship he ever had. It’s not hard to imagine his own mother refusing to return his calls. I can see a handful of friends willing to buy him a beer, but never offering him a ride home because he’s that depressing drunk who pees himself and passes out on your couch whining about how unfair everything is. If not for a well timed terrorist attack, he might have spent the new year snacking on buckshot. But deep inside that weary, withered heart, McClane can't stand seeing the innocent suffer - it's why he became a cop, and why he yells at his wife in her office instead of in front of the kids.
It's also why he was - at one time - one of our greatest film heroes. He bleeds, he worries, he cries, and he fears death - because he just wants to put his life back together, and the movie spends a big chunk of time getting you invested in that. Die Hard is McClane's personal redemption saga, taking place in about 6,000 square feet of a 35-story building. It's the ultimate postmodern crucible of self examination. It's David Mamet in a dirty tank top with rocket launchers. What holds your attention isn't just idle curiosity about how the next bad guy will die (although there are some truly righteous kills here). It's the metamorphosis of a selfish man into a selfless one that truly holds your attention and sets Die Hard apart from most popcorn thrillers.
That's not to say there aren't downsides. In order to make McClane seem especially resourceful, the LAPD is run by the principal from The Breakfast Club, and their SWAT team is about as good as your Mom is at Call of Duty. William Atherton dutifully appears as more or less the same douchebag he played in Ghostbusters and Real Genius. And don't get me started on the pair of FBI agents who between them have just enough brain cells to fill a shot glass. Outside the hero, his wife and the villain, almost everyone in this movie is total fucking idiot, if you bother to stop and think about it.
But for all its innovation and heart, this isn't really a thinking man's movie, is it? The most important thing here is that John McClane needs to apologize to his wife, and Carl from Family Matters is there with him every step of the way. And neither international terrorist mastermind Hans Gruber or his army of trained killers can keep him from breaking faces and snapping necks until he's reunited with her and made his family whole again. And the end, that's what Christmas AND Die Hard are all about. Family. Merry Christmas, to all, and to all a good night.