Die Hard

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Template:Infobox Film Template:About Die Hard is a Hollywood action film released in 1988, written by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza, starring Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, Alan Rickman, William Atherton, and directed by John McTiernan. The film features Willis as a sympathetic hero with typical human weaknesses, unlike the Übermensch heroes exemplified by Arnold Schwarzenegger. A huge critical and commercial success, Die Hard propelled Willis' film career, giving him more credibility in action and dramatic roles, and helped Alan Rickman become a popular player of villains in American film.

The movie is based on a 1979 novel by Roderick Thorp titled Nothing Lasts Forever, itself a sequel to the book The Detective, which was previously made into a 1968 movie starring Frank Sinatra. The film has spawned two sequels, Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990) and Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995). The fourth film in the series, currently in production, is titled Die Hard 4.0. A previous attempt at a fourth Die Hard eventually evolved into Tears of the Sun.

The popularity and impact of Die Hard on the action genre has also led to the coining of the phrase "Die Hard on/in a...", often used when casually referring to action movies of a similar "one man versus the bad guys" plot typically placed largely within a large building or vehicle. For example, the films Under Siege and Speed were both described by critics as "Die Hard on a boat" and "Die Hard on a bus", respectively.

Taglines:

"It will blow you through the back wall of the theater!"
"40 Stories Of Sheer Adventure!"
"High above the city of L.A. a team of terrorists has seized a building, taken hostages and declared war. One man has managed to escape. An off-duty cop hiding somewhere inside. He's alone, tired... and the only chance anyone has got."
"Twelve terrorists. One cop. The odds are against John McClane... That's just the way he likes it."
"He's the only chance anyone has got."
"It's Christmas Eve In L.A. and The Party Action's about to explode... On The Fortieth Floor!"
"Suspense, Excitement, Adventure, On every level!"
"40 Stories High - with Suspense, Excitement and Adventure on every level!"

1 Synopsis
2 German version trivia
3 Video games based on Die Hard
4 Die Hard Parodies
5 External links

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Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The film opens with New York City police detective John McClane coming to Los Angeles to reunite with his estranged wife Holly, played by Bonnie Bedelia, for the 1987 Christmas holidays. He is picked up in a limousine manned by the extremely talkative driver Argyle (De'voreaux White) and taken to Holly's place of work, a large office building named the Nakatomi Tower after its corporate owner. After dropping off John, Argyle takes the limo into the building's underground parking garage, to wait and see if his services will be further required.

A company Christmas party is taking place on the 30th floor of the building. After an initial meeting, which includes strained greetings with her boss (Joseph Takagi) and an oily colleague (Ellis), the couple have an argument over their separation and her decision to be addressed by her maiden name "Gennero." Holly rejoins the party while John stays in a room kicking himself for picking a fight with his wife.

Unknown to any of the party-goers, a gang of terrorists led by the German Hans Gruber, invade the building. Karl, the gang's ruthless enforcer, kills one security guard with a bullet to the head using a silencer fitted pistol and kills the second guard with three bullets to the chest. The gang seizes control of the security and communication systems, isolating them from the outside. Then they take everyone at the party hostage and pull Takagi, the regional director, aside for some private business. Once alone, they reveal that they are not terrorists, but actually criminals who are posing as terrorists as part of their plan to steal $600 million worth of bearer bonds from the Nakatomi Plaza's main security vault. When the director is unable (or unwilling) to give them the access codes to the vault, he is shot dead and the gang implement their secondary plan to break into the vault. Their cold-blooded scheme involves murdering all the hostages with explosives in order to fake their own deaths and hide their escape with the loot.

John McClane manages to slip away when the rest of the party-goers are rounded up and, barefooted and armed only with his police Beretta pistol, tries to summon the authorities. When he pulls a fire alarm, the gang detects it and call the fire department to report it as a false alarm. One member of the gang, Karl's brother, is sent to deal with the meddler, but is killed in mid-struggle with John by a head-first plunge down a flight of stairs. Grabbing the dead man's two-way radio and Heckler & Koch MP5 sub-machine gun, McClane desperately calls for help from the roof, but the police don't believe him and are more concerned about his unauthorized use of the frequency. Only when the police half-hear automatic-weapons fire from three of Gruber's minions, including the brutishly vengeful Karl, do they respond. Unfortunately for McClane, Gruber's gang overhears this attempt and already have a member waiting in the lobby to pose as a security guard to divert investigators.

While McClane is fighting for his life, Sgt. Al Powell (played by Reginald VelJohnson) is sent to investigate the building and is fooled into thinking all is in order. After killing two more members of the gang who storm into his room while he tries to break a window to signal Officer Powell, McClane sees to his horror that the cop - his last chance to get help - is leaving the scene. In one last desperate effort, McClane throws one of the dead criminals on top of Powell's police car, forcing the cop to call frantically for backup as the terrorists unwittingly help McClane by peppering Powell's car with gunfire. Powell's car is totalled, but he survives.

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Now with proof of a terrorist attack, the LAPD respond in full force. However, this was part of Hans Gruber's plan all along, and he intends to manipulate them into helping pierce the vault and set up their escape. The problem for them is that John McClane, upon seeing the incompetence and reckless attitude of the LAPD caused by hard-headed police Deputy Dwayne Robinson, resumes his fight against the terrorists from inside. To that end, McClane has taken a vital supply of detonators for the explosives from one of the dead terrorits. What follows is a cat-and-mouse game as Hans Gruber tries to implement his group's plan while recovering the detonators and simultaneously trying to stop McClane from interfering further.

Eventually, after numerous deadly engagements during which Powell is McClane's only ally among the authorities, Gruber recovers the detonators by expertly faking an American accent, pretending to be a hostage, and leading John into an ambush in a computer lab from which John frantically escapes with painful consequences: Gruber has all the glass in the room shot out to wound McClane's bare feet. McClane doctors his feet and figures out Gruber's plan, which involves blowing up the roof of the building along with the hostages. After fighting off Karl by apparently strangling him, John drives the hostages back off the roof and barely manages to escape himself when Gruber sets off the explosion. In an exciting scene, John jumps from the roof with a fire hose tied around his waist, and blasts his way into an office a couple of stories down. Meanwhile, the FBI plays right into Gruber's hands when they have the electrical power to the building cut, allowing Gruber's gang to bypass the last electromagnetic seal on the vault. Back outside the building, an irresponsible TV reporter named Richard Thornburg finds out about McClane and goes to Holly's home for an easy news story, interviewing the couple's two young children Lucy (Taylor Fry) and John Jr. (Noah Land). Seeing the report, along with a picture of the kids on Holly's desk, alerts Gruber to the fact that Holly is John's wife, something she has wisely refrained from telling him. He takes her as a special hostage.

In the meantime, Argyle, after making cheerful use of the limo's many frills and thus unaware of the events happening right above him, gets wind of the situation through a radio report. He manages to disable the terrorist who is preparing the gang's getaway vehicle by ramming the stolen ambulance with his limo and giving the man a knockout punch.

The film climaxes with a battered and beaten McClane confronting Gruber one last time high up in the tower, with Holly being held at gunpoint. With only two rounds in a gun taped to his back, McClane shoots the two remaining gang members still in action. Hans Gruber falls out the shattered window but pulls Holly with him. McClane manages to grab onto her, while Gruber attempts to finish them both off with his gun. Gruber is hanging on to Holly's Rolex watch and so McClane undoes the watch. Gruber's evil smirk changes into a flash of terror as the villain falls to his death from the 32nd floor.

As McClane and his wife are escorted from the building, the seemingly indestructible Karl suddenly reappears, brandishing his assault rifle in one final attempt to kill McClane. As McClane shields his wife, Karl is finally cut down for good by several bullets from an unseen shooter. As the image comes into view, we see it is Powell who has saved his friend's life. This is significant because Powell had earlier confided in John that he had mistakenly shot and killed a teenager who appeared to be armed. Until now, Powell had not been able to bring himself to fire a gun, and was headed for desk-duty.

McClane and Holly, finally safe, prepare to leave. Thornburg approaches them, still relentlessly angling for a story, but the only response he gets in a punch in the nose from Holly live in front of the camera. Arglye crashes his limo through the garage's security barrier, and the couple are driven away from the scene in the battered vehicle, kissing each other on the passenger seat while their driver vows to be with them to see how exciting their New Year's Eve is.

(Simon Gruber, Hans Gruber's brother, appeared in the third film of the Die Hard franchise.)

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German version trivia

In the German dub the names and backgrounds of the German-born terrorists were changed into English (mostly into their English equivalents): Hans became Jack, Karl became Charlie, Heinrich turned into Henry etc. The new background depicted them as radical Irish activists having gone freelance and for profit rather than ideals.

Although the true reason for the change has not yet been made public, it is a strong guess that the German producers felt uncomfortable about the idea of German terrorists, especially since there had been activities of German terrorists; most notorious were the actions of the Rote Armee Fraktion ('Red Army Faction'; short RAF) between 1970 and 1998 (when the group was officially dissolved).

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Video games based on Die Hard

Main article Die Hard games

A number of video games based on the Die Hard series of films have been made, including Die Hard Trilogy, Die Hard Arcade, Die Hard: Vendetta, and Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza.

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Die Hard Parodies

Recently a silent film parody of "Die Hard" has been circulating around the internet. It is called, "Die Hard: The Ballad of John McClane," and was created by Team Tiger Awesome. It can be found on YouTube

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