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Friday, January 21, 2011

Die Hard

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Die Hard is a 1988 American action film and the first in the Die Hard film series. The film was directed by John McTiernan and written by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza. It 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 film starring Frank Sinatra. The film was produced by Lawrence and Charles Gordon, along with Joel Silver.
It stars Bruce Willis as NYPD officer John McClane, Bonnie Bedelia as his wife, Holly, and Alan Rickman as thief Hans Gruber. The film was followed by three sequels; Die Hard 2 in 1990, Die Hard With A Vengeance in 1995, and Live Free or Die Hard in 2007.


Plot

On Christmas Eve, Detective John McClane (Bruce Willis) of the New York City Police Department arrives in Los Angeles to reconcile with his estranged wife, Holly Gennaro (Bonnie Bedelia). McClane is driven to the Nakatomi Plaza building by a limo driver named Argyle (De'voreaux White). The company Christmas party is disrupted by the arrival of thirteen international terrorists led by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman). The terrorists cut the telephone lines, seal the building exits, trapping Argyle and the limo inside the parking garage and replace the building guard with one of their own. Hans and his group secure the party goers as hostages, but McClane manages to slip into the stairwell of the building. Gruber portrays himself to the police as a terrorist working towards various extremist goals, but it is revealed that they are actually trying to steal $640 million in bearer bonds from the Nakatomi vault. When Nakatomi executive Joseph Takagi (James Shigeta) refuses to reveal the code for one of the vault's seven locks, Gruber executes him. Gruber orders Theo (Clarence Gilyard), his technical expert, to break through the locks on the vault. Theo reminds Hans that the final lock is powered by circuits that cannot be cut locally. Gruber promises to handle the last lock.
McClane moves through the building, hiding from or killing the terrorists he encounters. He learns more of their motives while acquiring a two-way radio, C4 explosives, and detonators from the body of one terrorist. McClane uses the radio to attract the attention of the LAPD, who send Sergeant Al Powell (Reginald VelJohnson) to investigate. Gruber sends his men, led by Karl (Alexander Godunov), to kill McClane and retrieve the detonators. Fooled by the impostor guard, Powell is about to leave when McClane drops the corpse of a terrorist onto Powell's police car. At the same moment one of Gruber's men opens fire on Powell, severely damaging his car as Powell calls in back up. McClane explains the situation via the two-way radio as the police, led by Deputy Police Chief Dwayne T. Robinson (Paul Gleason), arrive. The police send in a SWAT team and an armored vehicle. McClane and Powell are unable to prevent the SWAT team from being ambushed, but McClane manages to kill the terrorists attacking the SWAT team. One of Holly's coworkers, Harry Ellis (Hart Bochner), tries to negotiate with Hans and McClane for the return of the detonators. McClane refuses to return them, and Gruber shoots Ellis. The FBI arrive, in the form of Special Agent Johnson (Robert Davi) and Agent Johnson (Grand L. Bush), and take control from the police. They order the power to the building shut down, which deactivates the vault's final lock as Gruber had intended. Theo ransacks the now open vault, loading the bearer bonds into an ambulance to be used as their getaway vehicle.
McClane continues to sneak through the building to detain the terrorists. When he finds Gruber working at the explosives planted on the roof, Gruber passes himself off as a terrified hostage who escaped. McClane appears to let down his guard, as he makes friendly conversation and gives Gruber a pistol; when Gruber attempts to fire the weapon, however, it is discovered that there were no bullets in the gun and McClane gave him the gun to test his underhandedness. As this happens, Gruber's men appear from an elevator and fire at McClane, who is forced to flee, leaving behind the detonators. The roof is rigged to explode with the detonators, and Gruber lures the FBI into the trap by asking for helicopter transport for him and his men to Los Angeles International Airport in exchange for the hostages; Gruber plans to use the roof explosion to make the authorities believe him to be dead and allow him to escape with the bonds. As the helicopters travel to the scene, Gruber observes a television news story from investigative reporter Richard Thornburg (William Atherton) and learns that Holly is McClane's wife. With the helicopter nearing with both agents Johnson on board, Gruber orders the hostages to the roof, taking personal control over Holly. McClane arrives at the roof, deals with the terrorists escorting the hostages including Karl, and scares the hostages back downstairs before the roof explodes, engulfing the FBI helicopters killing both Johnsons. Meanwhile, Argyle stops Theo from escaping by knocking him unconscious. Realizing Gruber holds Holly and that he is down to his last two bullets, McClane offers to give himself over, and uses the feint to shoot Gruber in the shoulder and Gruber's last man in the head. Gruber falls backwards through a window, still hanging onto Holly by her watch, attempts to drag her with him, but McClane is able to unclasp Holly's watch in time and catch her while Gruber falls 32 stories to his death.
McClane and Holly are escorted from the building, meeting Powell in person. Karl, previously thought dead, is helped out of the building before rising up with a gun and pointing it at McClane. Karl is shot by Powell before he can open fire, and Argyle comes crashing out the parking garage in the limo, after having detained Theo attempting to escape in the ambulance. John and Holly are driven off by Argyle, their relationship renewed by their experiences.

[edit]German version

In the German dub, the names and backgrounds of the German-born terrorists were changed into English forms (mostly into their British equivalents, with the exception of Marco and Franco, who remained Italian as they were in the original English version): Hans became Jack, Karl became Charlie, Heinrich turned into Henry. In the scene where John is writing down the names of the terrorists, a voiceover in the German version says "I'm gonna call you Hans and Karl, just like the two evil giants in the fairy tale" while referring to them as Jack and Charlie later. The new background depicts them as some internationally organized terrorists having gone freelance and for profit rather than ideals.[1] This was because German terrorism (especially by the Red Army Faction) was still considered a sensitive issue by the West German government in the 1980s.

[edit]Cast

[edit]Production

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Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.(November 2010)
See also: Nothing Lasts Forever (1979 novel)
Fox Plaza in Los Angeles, portrayed in the film as "Nakatomi Plaza"
Die Hard follows its source material — Roderick Thorp's novel Nothing Lasts Forever — closely, much of the film's memorable scenes, characters, and dialogue taken directly from the novel.Nothing Lasts Forever, a sequel to Thorp's earlier novel The Detective, was written with the intention of being adapted into a film sequel to the film adaptation of The Detective, which starred Frank Sinatra. When Sinatra turned down the offer to star in the sequel, the story was altered to be a stand-alone film with no connections to The Detective. Other changes included the older hero of the novel becoming younger, the hero's daughter becoming his wife, and the American Klaxon Oil Corporation becoming the Japanese Nakatomi Corporation. The novel's tone is darker and more serious than the film's, and the politically motivated fighters of the novel became thieves pretending to be terrorists in the film. Director John McTiernan states on the DVD commentary that the change from a tale of political terrorism to a heist film was made because he wanted to bring "joy" to the story, rather than having the villains be overly ponderous. The newly built corporate headquarters of 20th Century Fox, Fox Plaza in Los Angeles, was used for exterior shots of the Nakatomi building.
According to commentary from the film's DVD release, Alan Rickman's surprise when Gruber is dropped from the building is genuine: the director chose to release Rickman a full second before he expected it in order to get genuine surprise, a move which angered Rickman. The text commentary track also reveals that the shooting script did not originally feature the meeting between McClane and Gruber pretending to be a hostage; it was only written in when it was discovered that Rickman could perform a rather convincing American accent. The name Hans Gruber was used by one of the villains in the 1966 film Our Man Flint.

[edit]Music

Beethoven's 9th Symphony is featured prominently in Michael Kamen's score throughout the film, in many guises and variations (mostly as aleitmotif for Gruber and the terrorists), and thematic variations on "Singin' in the Rain" are also featured as the theme for the character Theo. John McTiernan said in the Die Hard DVD commentary that he incorporated those themes into the movie's soundtrack as an homage toStanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (which featured both pieces of music). Basing his score around thematic variations on well-known pieces is a conceit that Kamen previously used in Brazil and would repeat in Die Hard 2 (which featured Jean Sibelius's "Finlandia") and McTiernan's Die Hard With A Vengeance (which featured variations on the Civil War marching tune, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home", again previously used in a Kubrick film, Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb). Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 is playing during the party sequence near the start of the film.
As the film has a Christmas setting, the score also features sleigh bells in some cues, as well as the Christmas pop standard "Winter Wonderland." Two 1987 pop songs are used as source music: near the beginning of the film, limousine driver Argyle plays the rap song "Christmas In Hollis", performed by Run-D.M.C., and later, while talking on the phone in the limousine, Argyle is listening to Stevie Wonder's "Skeletons." The end credits of the film begin with the Christmas song "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" (performed by Vaughn Monroe) and continues/concludes with Beethoven's 9th Symphony.
The final four minutes of the film were tracked with music from two other Twentieth Century Fox features – these were 'temp tracks' which the studio ultimately decided to leave in the picture. The music heard when McClane and Powell see each other for the first time is from John Scott's score for Man on Fire (1987). When Karl appears with his rifle, a cut from the 1986 science fiction action film Aliens composed byJames Horner is heard. This music can be found on the Aliens soundtrack as the first few minutes of the cue "Resolution and Hyperspace".
Similarly to Aliens, the score by Michael Kamen was heavily edited, with music samples looped over and over and cues added to scenes. The most notable example is the "brass blast" heard when John shoots Marco from under a table and later when Hans Gruber falls to his death.[2]
The score as heard in the film was released by Varese Sarabande in February 2002, but was limited to 3000 copies.[3]
  1. The Nakatomi Plaza (1:50)
  2. Gruber's Arrival (3:40)
  3. John's Escape/You Want Money? (5:52)
  4. The Tower (1:49)
  5. The Roof (3:57)
  6. The Fight (1:07)
  7. He Won't Be Joining Us (3:53)
  8. And If He Alters It? (2:39)
  9. Going After John Again (4:33)
  10. Have A Few Laughs (3:29)
  11. Welcome To The Party (1:00)
  12. TV Station/His Bag Is Missing (3:52)
  13. Assault On The Tower (8:16)
  14. John Is Found Out (5:03)
  15. Attention Police (3:38)
  16. Bill Clay (2:02)
  17. I Had An Accident (2:37)
  18. Ode To Joy – Beethoven (3:36)
  19. The Battle (10:15)
  20. Gruber's Departure (1:56)
  21. Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! (Instrumental Version) – Jule Styne/Sammy Cahn (2:00)

[edit]Reception

When Die Hard was released, it was highly acclaimed by critics and was considered one of the best action films of its era.[citation needed]Based on 50 reviews collected by the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 94% of critics gave Die Hard a positive review, with an average rating of 8.2/10.[4] The film's title and its story of a lone hero battling a multitude of single-minded opponents in an isolated setting also became a common descriptor for later action movies: "Die Hard on a _____" became a simple and easy way to define the plot of many action films that came in its wake. For example, 1994's Speed was called "Die Hard on a bus",[5] 1996's The Rock was dubbed "Die Hard on an island".[6] However, Roger Ebert gave it a less than flattering review, giving it a mere two stars and criticizing the stupidity of the deputy police chief character, claiming that "all by himself he successfully undermines the last half of the movie."[7]
Die Hard had a budget of $28 million. Released in 21 theaters on July 15, 1988 it widened to 1,276 theaters the following weekend, grossing $7.1 million. The film earned $83 million domestically and $140.7 million worldwide.[8] The film was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Film Editing, Best Sound and Best Visual Effects.[9]
The film spawned three popular sequels: Die Hard 2 (1990), Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) and Live Free or Die Hard (2007), all featuring Willis as McClane. A fifth film in the series, with the working title Die Hard 24/7, is in the scripting stage and is tentatively planned to begin filming in 2011.[10][11] In 2001, Die Hard was listed at number 39 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills, a list America's most heart-pounding films.[12] In the June 22, 2007 issue of Entertainment Weekly, it was named the best action film of all time.[13] In 2003, Hans Gruber was listed at #46 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains list. He was also listed as the 17th greatest movie character by Empire Magazine.[14] John McClane was placed at number 12 on the same list.[15] McClane's catchphrase "Yippee kai yay, motherfucker" was voted as #96 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere magazine in 2007.[16] In 2010 Die Hard was voted by Empire Magazine as The Greatest Christmas Film Of All Time[17]



In July 2007, Bruce Willis donated the undershirt worn in the film to the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution.[18] In addition to the shirt, a poster of the film, a prop badge, and a script for the sequel Live Free or Die Hard were also donated. Museum director Brent Glass called the film "a quintessential Hollywood action movie".


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