Die Hard (1988)
December 4, 2014 5:51 PM - Subscribe

A hardworking NYPD officer arrives in LA to attend his recently-separated wife's corporate Christmas party, and has to deal with a bunch of party crashers. Directed by John McTiernan, starring Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia, Reginald VelJohnson and Paul Gleason, William Atherton, James Shigeta.

Rated a 92% at Rotten Tomatoes, with some mixed critical reviews. Is it 'The very pinnacle of the '80s action movie, and if it's not the greatest action movie ever made, then it's damn close.' or else 'As a grand flourish of cinematic technique, it is awesome; as a human drama, it is disgusting and silly, a mindless depiction of carnage on an epic scale.' Perhaps it's the most excessive film around. It piles every known element of the action genre onto the flimsy story, and 'unusually reprehensible.'
Ebert gave it two stars.

5 Reasons Die Hard Is The Best Christmas Movie Ever Made
Stop Saying "Die Hard" Is Your Favorite Christmas Movie

can you steam it?
This is part of the Holiday Movie Club
posted by the man of twists and turns (41 comments total) 13 users marked this as a favorite
 


Dear God, I love this movie with all of my heart. I'd probably put it in my top 10. The only sour note is Reginald VelJohnson getting his violent groove back by being able to shoot someone again.

I showed this film to my ex's 14-year-old last year and he was bored out of his mind at the beginning. A modern version would not have the "slow" lead-in that this film has. Which is a damn shame, as I think the pacing is perfect.

My favorite line.
posted by brundlefly at 5:59 PM on December 4, 2014 [9 favorites]


Oh, also I have been guilty of calling Die Hard my favorite Christmas movie, and it is a pretty hackneyed joke at this point.

Clearly Gremlins is the greatest Christmas movie.
posted by brundlefly at 6:02 PM on December 4, 2014 [3 favorites]


Fists with your toes?
posted by ODiV at 6:23 PM on December 4, 2014 [3 favorites]


If you're over 30 but under 40 and Love Actually isn't tied with Die Hard as your favorite Xmas movie, what's your deal? #alanrickman

Boxing Day in our house is Love Actually followed by Die Hard followed by [wild card Christmas movie] (this year it's Nightmare Before Christmas) accompanied by lots of leftovers including Christmas cake and icecream.

Always a therapeutic start to the summer holidays -- even though this year, for the first time, neither of us falls in those age limits anymore :(
posted by prettypretty at 6:38 PM on December 4, 2014 [4 favorites]


An obligatory link: Die Hard is also one of the best ever films about architecture.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 7:49 PM on December 4, 2014 [10 favorites]


One of Atherton's Asshole Trilogy, along with Ghostbusters and Real Genius.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:32 PM on December 4, 2014 [12 favorites]


"Just like in 'nam..." *chopper sounds*
"I was in third grade, asshole."
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 8:57 PM on December 4, 2014 [6 favorites]




the most excessive film around. It piles every known element of the action genre onto the flimsy story,

Wow, that is the most dated quote ever. It's hard to remember how that could ever have been true! The average Pixar movie now has more action scenes than Die Hard.
posted by latkes at 7:24 AM on December 5, 2014 [5 favorites]


Die Hard has always been my family's favorite movie, and I am in the indicated age range, but I have never seen Love Actually. I have a good excuse.
posted by bq at 7:25 AM on December 5, 2014 [1 favorite]


When they invent the Retroactive Oscar, the first one goes to Alan Rickman for redefining the action movie villain. Twenty-five years and counting, every great villain is at least a quarter Hans Gruber.
posted by Etrigan at 7:54 AM on December 5, 2014 [18 favorites]


every great villain is at least a quarter Hans Gruber.

The benefits of a classical education, presumably
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 10:15 AM on December 5, 2014 [11 favorites]


"Nice suit. John Philips... London. I have two myself. Rumor has it Arafat shops there as well."
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 10:30 AM on December 5, 2014 [1 favorite]


It's been way too long since I've seen this. I miss the action movies of the late 80s and early 90s.

I've read some interesting stuff over the years about the the film (the Rolex represents Holly's independence and it's only by her husband removing it from her that he's able to save her, etc) and I always mean to try to bring some of that critical thought in with me when I watch it, but... I just can't. I end up just turning my brain off and enjoying the film.
posted by ODiV at 11:28 AM on December 5, 2014 [2 favorites]


"We're going to need some more FBI guys, I guess."

"Hey Roy, how you feeling?" "Pretty fuckin unappreciated, Al."

Some time after I saw the movie a few times in the theater, back in the late 80s, I went and got the book it was based on. Whoo-baby, is THAT a downer. I don't see "books included" in the tag so I won't spoil it but it has similar bones and a very different tone. Much more of a noir piece, IIRC. I should track it down again; I didn't really develop a taste for noir till later in my life.
posted by phearlez at 11:38 AM on December 5, 2014 [1 favorite]


It really is the best. I really wish they would stop making sequels (this comment can equally be applied to the Terminator franchise)
posted by TwoWordReview at 11:40 AM on December 5, 2014 [4 favorites]


Another thing about Die Hard is the idea of "Bruce Willis the indestructible bad ass" wasn't yet part of our rich cultural tapestry.
posted by ODiV at 11:54 AM on December 5, 2014 [2 favorites]


the idea of "Bruce Willis the indestructible bad ass" wasn't yet part of our rich cultural tapestry

I'd modify that to "Bruce Willis, the infinitely erodable, yet somehow still indestructible bad ass". The only person who comes close to the same sort of world-weary "more of this bullshit?" affect is Harrison Ford.
posted by rocketman at 12:05 PM on December 5, 2014 [5 favorites]


He was still "Bruce Willis the smartass guy from Moonlighting, and also those insufferable wine cooler ads."
posted by Chrysostom at 12:05 PM on December 5, 2014 [3 favorites]


I'd modify that to "Bruce Willis, the infinitely erodable, yet somehow still indestructible bad ass".

It's really striking when you compare the smartass, bloody and beleaguered John McClane of Die Hard to the grumpy and indestructible Terminator John McClane of Live Free or Die Hard. They might as well be different characters and different franchises.

I haven't seen A Good Day To Die Hard yet, but I gather it has similar issues.
posted by brundlefly at 12:43 PM on December 5, 2014 [4 favorites]


It's really striking when you compare the smartass, bloody and beleaguered John McClane of Die Hard to the grumpy and indestructible Terminator John McClane of Live Free or Die Hard. They might as well be different characters and different franchises.

I timed my mid-tour leave from Korea to coincide with the premiere of With a Vengeance. I have bought the trilogy no less than five times (2x VHS, DVD, DVD set, Blu-Ray). It is the first thing I watch any time I upgrade my TV, VCR, DVD player, or sound system. I timed one of my mid-tour leaves from Iraq to coincide with the premiere of Live Free. I haven't even bothered to see A Good Day, because Live Free is no more a Die Hard movie than was Armageddon.
posted by Etrigan at 1:06 PM on December 5, 2014 [3 favorites]


Live Free is, dull climax aside, pretty entertaining. I did enjoy faux-McClane taking out the helicopter by launching a car at it, even if it's not as cool as Tony Stark doing the same thing with a grand piano.

But yeah, it is not a Die Hard movie, and from what I've heard, A Good Day is just genuinely awful from top to bottom.
posted by brundlefly at 1:48 PM on December 5, 2014


Live Free is, dull climax aside, pretty entertaining.

My biggest issue with Live Free was the SuperMcClane aspect, but a close second was the fact that it was yet another heist-disguised-as-terrorist-attack plot. It was forgivable in With a Vengeance because it came after Die Harder*, but I spent the entire movie thinking, Okay, what's the heist here? Because there's gonna be a heist, right? I hope it won't be a heist, but... oh, yeah, it's a heist.

* -- I know, not its official name, but shut up, that's what.
posted by Etrigan at 2:02 PM on December 5, 2014


Have we mentioned Die Hard's sassy sister movie? The Bob's Burgers musical mashup was a highlight.

Also in re books - there is another film adaptation of book about McClane. It stars Frank Sinatra. It is messed up.
posted by bq at 9:05 PM on December 5, 2014 [3 favorites]


I have seen Good Day and while McClane is less super the film is a horrible turd where the central character could have been anyone, like they had got genetic crappy action film script off the shelf and called it's central character JM without relating it to the rest of the series.

DH2 is the better Xmas movie.
posted by biffa at 10:15 PM on December 5, 2014


Die Hard does a great job of using things most people are afraid of and making it necessary for the hero to overcome his own fears in order to accomplish the goal.
posted by drezdn at 10:26 AM on December 7, 2014 [2 favorites]


Welcome to the party, pal.
posted by nubs at 5:06 PM on December 7, 2014 [5 favorites]


DH2 is the better Xmas movie.

That's true. Of all of the action movies that incoporate Christmas into their settings (essentially: Shane Black's oeuvre* plus some Die Hards...Am I missing any? Maybe Batman Returns?), Die Hard 2 may be the only one where the Christmas season actually affects the events of the movie in any significant way...Just because the winter weather and a seasonably-overcrowded airport factor into the stakes.

* Actually I haven't seen The Long Kiss Goodnight since one time in the late 90s, so I don't know if maybe I'm forgetting something there that may affect my argument.
posted by doctornecessiter at 11:21 AM on December 8, 2014


One of my favorite things about Iron Man 3 is that Shane Black was asked to make a movie in someone else's universe and he still said, "Fuck it. It's gonna be Christmas. Cause I'm Shane Black and that's just what I do."
posted by brundlefly at 11:47 AM on December 8, 2014 [4 favorites]


If you enjoy Die Hard, a fun summer read is Christopher Brookmyre's One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night (1999), which imagines a Die-Hard-like event happening to a reluctant high-school-reunion attendee.
posted by blueberry at 10:48 PM on December 22, 2014 [1 favorite]




Went to see Die Hard as the office Christmas outing, which I still think of as basically a bright idea, but it got me out of the house. The Prince Charles (London repertory cinema) is showing it, and drunken young people come prepared to cheer Hans and Al's first appearances and laugh at the jokes before they happen (and laugh at anything that looks typically 80s - at one point some women started giggling at the touchscreen interface in reception) and I hated the experience. Still a very effective film, but I was surprised at how reactionary it is, being made when Reagan's body, at least, was still at home in the White House.

It did crystallise a thought I've been having about the coding of masculinity - badassness - in action movies isn't to do with the amount of damage a character can inflict, but how much he can take: compare and contrast the state McClain is in at the end of the movie with that Gruber is in (at least before the big drop). There are numerous other examples in cinema (and fiction - Ian Fleming seems to have specifically invented Bond with the intention of torturing him).
posted by Grangousier at 9:38 AM on December 19, 2016


An obligatory link: Die Hard is also one of the best ever films about architecture.

Other architectural trivia: Die Hard was made while producer Joel Silver was restoring the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Storer House. The Silver Pictures company logo was a copy of the home's signature architectural elements.

The tv news crew is from the fictitious station KFLW, a possible reference to the architect's name.

Before shooting Joe Takagi, Hans Gruber pauses to admire a model of a bridge that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright but never built.
posted by peeedro at 5:46 PM on June 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


Just watched it maybe for the first time since it was in theaters and it does really hold up very well. I remember going to see it just because it was the hottest July in recent memory and I didn't have air-conditioning. Willis was still the Moonlighting guy and had struck out in all of his previous attempts to jump into the movies so I had pretty low expectations. I mean at the time, Willis playing an action hero seemed pretty silly and the movie didn't come with much buzz.

This time obviously, I watched it with thirty years of shlubs playing action heros and Willis morphing into a big star and then fading into whatever the heck he is now. The politics of it bothered me somewhat at the time but now I guess that I can just chalk it up to it being of its time. The whole, "you're not a real man if your wife doesn't take our name" stuff is pretty bad but I guess that it's in character for John McClain of 1988.

All that said, it's still a crackerjack action film with one of the best written screenplays that I can think of. I wish that genre movies these days paid as much attention to little character moments and plot set-up as this screenplay does. I love that they start with the "fists with your toes" line in the first few minutes but the payoff for that doesn't happen until close to the end. The fight scenes and shootouts are so well blocked and edited without the chaos nonsense that pollutes most modern action films.
posted by octothorpe at 6:30 PM on December 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


I think this movie might be the earliest depiction of a blerd in a major action movie? Can anyone remember any others before this?
posted by fiercekitten at 9:48 PM on December 25, 2018 [1 favorite]




I guess that I didn't know Rickman was in Harry Potter.
posted by octothorpe at 9:28 AM on December 12, 2019


When I showed this to my kiddo, they noted "This could basically be a PG-13 movie if Bruce Willis didn't mutter the F-word a dozen times in every fight scene."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:39 PM on March 31, 2022


In another thread, someone used Die Hard as a stand-in for "bad action movie" and it made my head hurt.

If you Google "perfect action movie" the first three results are listicles (Rolling Stone, Variety, and TimeOut) of the best action movies ever made. Die Hard is #2 on the first two lists and #1 on the third.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:09 AM on January 15


I saw this pop up again on recent comments and I was like, "oh, I should post Max Gladstone's take from a decade ago that Die Hard is a fairy tale, not a hero's journey, that's fun," only to find that it was posted here nearly that long ago. Read it if you haven't! It's a really interesting take that, I think, also explains some of the more recent burnout against comic book narratives.

The other thing I've been thinking about is the "Benefits of a classical education" thing. Alexander is not actually recorded to have wept "because there were no more worlds to conquer"; the closest quote is that he wept upon learning that there were infinite worlds and he hadn't even conquered all of one yet. And while there is definitely a history, in English sources, of screwing this up, I can't help but think that this is another one of the script's jabs at everyone other than McClane, Gennaro and Powell. Just like the film presents "Helsinki Syndrome" with a straight face, here's a confident statement from a man who considers himself smarter than everybody else--and he's wrong!

This really is just a perfect movie. Ever so slowly eighties movies are starting to edge out the seventies movies in my top 10.
posted by thecaddy at 6:52 AM on January 16


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