The Definitives
Die Hard (1988)
Director: John McTiernan
Cast: Bruce WIllis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia, and Reginald VelJohnson
Rated: R
Runtime: 131 min.
by Brian Eggert
Entered into
The Definitives:
6/27/2007
Original Release Date:
7/15/1988
Long before John McClane ever took a fire hose-assisted dive off the roof of Nakatomi Plaza (in reality Twentieth Century Fox headquarters), movie heroes like Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Bond were performing similar stunts and sustaining infinite blows in popcorn-munching action flicks. Die Hard, based on Richard Thorp’s novel Nothing Lasts Forever, adamantly supports action movie archetypes, yet opposes their more absurd superheroish storytelling. As a result, John McClane (played by Bruce Willis with pitch-perfect humanism) bleeds, cries out in pain, and has imperfections befitting an antihero. McClane in the man-alone-against-terrorist-group plot may seem formulaic today, but only because the film originated the formula back in 1988.
Visiting his estranged wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) for Christmas at Nakatomi Plaza in Los Angeles, New York cop John McClane’s greatest conflict within Die Hard is not fighting terrorists. Alternatively to most liken pictures in this genre, McClane’s primary conflict, one endcapped in the first fifteen minutes and resolved at the very end, subsists in the reassertion of his male power over Holly; terrorists are simply the means to an end.
Holly and John’s West coast vs. East coast marriage arrangements, John’s threatened male ego over Holly’s use of her maiden name Gennero, and Holly’s Rolex-inducing success at Nakatomi Plaza—these all present conflicts for McClane to resolve. Secondary terrorist threats provide McClane the opportunity to place himself in control (albeit indirectly), by setting Holly in a weakened position so that he can eventually rescue her, which proves to her that she needs him to survive. The wounded world (either McClane’s marriage or Nakatomi Plaza) is best stitched-up by wise-cracking New York cop McClane, which, given America’s current post-9/11 New York City love affair, should be more relevant now than ever. New York, after all, is characteristically male. Die Hard would not be Die Hard if McClane were from Delaware.
McClane confirms his heterosexual status early on, both in sexual and modernized cowboy terms. He displays hetero characteristics not through Holly, but rather with his wandering eyes that scope out women on the plane, in the airport, and then revisit a naked pin-up girl posted on a maintenance wall in Nakatomi Plaza. Even McClane’s origins in New York help this cause. When first arriving in Los Angeles, McClane finds himself virginal to West Coast ways. “Only in L.A.” becomes his motto, as if L.A. is silly, off somehow, and perhaps effeminate or homosexual, whereas New York is effectually masculine and heterosexual. Consequently, McClane becomes a newly envisioned Western hero—an Easterner goin’ out West to penetrate the frontier. Hans Gruber, McClane’s nemesis, even points this out later by referring to McClane as a cowboy.
The American-masculine hero’s relationship with his maleness via the need for an ever-exposed tough-guy body defines who he is; without flawless corporeal form, he would cease to be both male and heroic. Early on, McClane, for all intents and purposes, strips down; in a white undershirt and bare feet he exposes his male body as an iconic and heroic tool. At his most raw form, McClane overpowers foreign enemies without benefit of clothes, as though his most simplified nature is enough to mow down terrorist threats. And yet the only "naked" parts of his body are his feet.
From the naked appearance of future cyborgs and warriors who have traveled into “the past” in The Terminator movies, to John Rambo’s sweaty shirtlessness, male action movie heroes often necessitate their own visually remarkable musculature, proving to the viewer their exceptional masculinity by way of rippling biceps and pectorals. Bruce Willis does not reduce his character to an obvious, and faceless, muscle-bound body however; his baring is limited to his feet, which after sprinting across broken glass while dodging bullets, reveal him as vulnerable. McClane’s attitude towards his injury sustains a committed manly response, though his body is as susceptible to harm just as the rest of ours.
Indeed, throughout the Die Hard series, by the end of nearly each film, Bruce Willis’ agile frame is usually covered in blood, dirtied, and bruised beyond realism. This often speaks to McClane’s humanity, unlike typical action movie protagonists that take to a superheroish ability to withstand harm and display few visible injuries. Furthermore, Willis’ body resists the typically ripped male physique. He has strength and dexterity to be sure, but lacks the veiny, sinewy, hurculean body of Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger.
McClane is even disposed to ‘feminine’ behavior; in the first scenes, a fellow airplane passenger suggests McClane “make fists” with his toes to relieve jetlag. McClane offers a look of skepticism, perhaps because of the ridiculous or feminine nature of the act. Toes or feet are often a metonym for femininity (rarely are there women with foot fetishes in film); nonetheless, minutes later, McClane is barefoot in Holly’s office curling his toes. Clenching them into fists acknowledges that McClane resists stereotypical, absolutist tough-guy ideals—that his feminine side indulges in this private act (one he would certainly not perform in front of Holly or Gruber)—and also twists that femininity into something symbolically male: fists. McClane’s male and female egos seem to be at war. While he can curl his toes to relieve jetlag, he still must rescue his wife and solidify his status as the dominant male in their relationship.
Secretive admittances of femininity aside, McClane’s entire ascension to the top of Nakatomi Plaza signifies an unprecedented phallic growth, complete with an “explosive climax”. What better way to illustrate McClane’s superior New York masculinity over L.A.’s dainty, comparatively feminine persona, than coming all over it? Rather than accepting capture by Gruber’s threatening male presence, McClane escapes, preventing symbolic castration. Proving his undeniably cocky (pun intended) and predominant masculinity, he climbs a suggestively-shaped building, killing terrorist after terrorist along the way, all the while usurping Gruber’s threat to McClane’s manhood—the next best thing to a pissing contest.
Male dominance and substantiation becomes Die Hard’s underlying conflict (in addition to the basic “saving the day” plot). McClane resolves said conflict by reaching a C4-induced orgasm, rescuing his damsel-in-distress Holly, and solidifying he and Holly’s estranged marriage (which in later films is once again divided).
The building itself, a glass tower, describes the fragility of masculinity—just how threatening challenge is for the male ego. And the building certainly is challenged, by Gruber, aggressive S.W.A.T. teams, FBI assault choppers, and L.A.P.D. armed carriers. At any moment McClane could shatter, but with broken glass all around him, he walks over it, barefoot and bleeding to boot. And though his feet gush blood in an obviously painful moment, McClane, talking to Sgt. Powell on a walkie-talkie, remains calm and collected in voice. Those of us in the audience see his face, wincing in pain. McClane even becomes a shoulder to cry on during Powell’s confession, allowing for a moment of male bonding that unfurls feminine qualities in both. While McClane is at his weakest pulling glass from his foot, Powell explains why he is a desk jockey. By the end of the film, both officers’ problems are solved and male egos restored; Powell guns down the last surviving terrorist and McClane reclaims Holly.
The building’s destruction, in addition to signifying McClane’s orgasmic victory, also indicates Gruber’s masculine failure. Gruber attempts to gain control of the building, asserting his power over the massive phallic symbol, and thus his own masculine identity. Each time one of Gruber’s terrorists is pumped full of lead or an entire floor is blown away, Gruber loses men, thus control over the phallic glass tower.
McClane stomps out Gruber’s masculinity atop Nakatomi Plaza, thwarting the final plan. He even goes so far as to drop Gruber out a window by unfastening Holly’s Rolex, solving two problems at once: unfastening Holly from her symbol of occupational authority and success and feminine independence, while simultaneously killing the bad guy.
American exceptionalism (closely related to male exceptionalism in film) rears its head when McClane and Gruber set up Die Hard as a pseudo-High Noon for the late 1980s. After making his High Noon reference, Gruber is proved villainous almost exclusively through his knowledge of movie trivia. Gruber, a German-born Brit claims John Wayne starred in the iconic Western, and McClane, the American, corrects him to the fact that it was Gary Cooper. This addresses several good guy vs. bad guy scenarios, using High Noon’s classic standoff between Marshall Will Kane and criminal Frank Miller as a model. It suggests cowboy McClane and criminal Gruber engage in a uniformly classic struggle of pure good vs. pure evil (thus idealizing their conflict as something “classic” in the viewer’s eyes). Given High Noon’s intended allegory to McCarthy-era informing, we see their duel illustrated in terms of McClane’s American purity vs. Gruber’s pro-communist (in metaphor only) un-American impurity.
Bruce Willis, better only in 12 Monkeys and Pulp Fiction, added a much-needed authenticity to the 1980s action hero, reinventing it for countless rip-offs. Movies like Speed and Under Siege rely wholly on Die Hard’s harmony of claustrophobic space with big action thrills. Critics would describe its followers as ‘Die Hard on a bus, plane, boat, train, etc.’ to grant that limited environments and fault-laden heroes are copied from their progenitor. Male heroes are now flawed, unhappy individuals, made heroic through whatever conflict they face. They get shot, dislocate shoulders, have mental disorders, are alcoholics, and on rare occasion even sacrifice themselves. McClane started it all.
In fact, the film’s most memorable line comes as a rebellion to traditional heroes, using McClane’s own ironic humor as a paradigm shift for traditional cowboy war-cries like yippee-ki-yay:
Gruber: You know my name but who are you? Just another American who saw too many movies as a child? Another orphan of a bankrupt culture who thinks he's John Wayne? Rambo? Marshall Dillon?
McClane: Was always kinda partial to Roy Rogers actually. I really dig those sequined shirts.
Gruber: Do you really think you have a chance against us, Mister Cowboy?
McClane: Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.
In later Die Hard pictures the line is used as garnish; only in its original use did it have any meaning.
Whether running barefoot through an ocean of broken glass or just barely catching a vent opening when falling down an elevator shaft, McClane does the impossible, and yet makes it all very plausible. Perhaps it is the film’s unpolished treatment of McClane, composited with Gruber’s eccentric, equally-flawed posse of terrorists. Actually, even the description “terrorist” seems incorrect; unlike so many Rambo and Commando-type pictures of the ‘80s, Die Hard’s terrorists are ingenious thieves. These are not Hollywood supervillains battling against a single superman in an endless physical bloodbath; instead, scenes between McClane and Gruber consist of mostly dialogue. The best, and most suspenseful exchange comes when Gruber poses as an escaped hostage to trap McClane (a scene added after producers discovered Rickman’s talent for voicing an American accent).
Gruber remains the one constant among varying heroes. Holly Gennero, Sgt. Powell, the FBI, and McClane are all pitted against Gruber, the quintessential villain we love to hate, portrayed with thespian bravado by Alan Rickman—until then a fairly unknown-to-film British stage actor. After this benchmark performance, suddenly every movie antagonist became a non-U.S. citizen, frequently a Brit. Audiences loved seeing Rickman as a villain, who would later spark a number of fiendish Brit miscreants; subsequent roles in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Quigley Down Under were distorted versions of his Gruber (even, to an extent, the devilishly-appealing Snape from the Harry Potter series).
Aside from Blind Date and his 5-year run on TV’s “Moonlighting”, Bruce Willis was relatively unknown and chosen only after Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and Richard Gere turned down the McClane part. For Twentieth Century Fox, casting Willis meant lesser box office than established talent. Somehow, test screenings received poor feedback, which Fox believed due to Willis’ unproven status as an action star. Unfavorable reception meant Fox had all but written off Die Hard as a guaranteed flop.
Filmed for less than a staggeringly-low $30 million, if produced today, Die Hard would surely pass the hundred million dollar mark. And though by today’s standards its $80 million box office take sounds paltry in comparison to franchises like Spider-Man and Pirates of the Caribbean, which reach upwards of $300 million in domestic grosses, Die Hard nearly tripled its budget, surprising the hell out of Fox.
Fresh off the success of Predator, director John McTiernan found himself behind another commercial success. His collaboration with superb cinematographer Jan de Bont (who would go on to direct his own Die Hard-esque picture Speed) continued on McTiernan’s next film The Hunt for Red October. Being passed over for, or wisely passing on, Die Hard 2: Die Harder, McTiernan returned to helm the entertaining third entry, Die Hard with a Vengeance. But his later flicks Last Action Hero, The 13th Warrior, Basic, and Rollerball (2002) taint his résumé, as these were failures in every sense of the word. Die Hard stands as McTiernan’s best film to date.
Michael Kamen’s score plays a deepened orchestral version of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" from his Ninth Symphony. Now considered a holiday favorite, “Ode to Joy” finds itself bonding directly to Gruber’s crew, whereas McClane has no significant riff of his own aside from the occasional whistle of “Jingle Bells”. Primarily due to Kamen’s use of “Ode to Joy” and the inclusion of “Let it Snow” at the film’s finale, Die Hard, a violent, family-unfriendly blockbuster set in the snowless (unless you count falling bonds in the finale) winter of Los Angeles, is now strangely a Christmas movie. Come this Holiday season, you might consider forgoing your annual dose of A Christmas Story for something less family-oriented. For me, nothing says “Happy Holidays” like "Now I have a machine gun. Ho-ho-ho" stenciled on a dead terrorist.
Justifying male power in every other scene, Die Hard subjects audiences to McClane’s hard-edged, unyielding attempts to boast masculinity. And granted, if reading the film from a feminist point of view, I might have kicked myself in the groin for being a man. But one can just as easily dismiss McClane’s behavior; the picture is just too damn fun.
Barely dated and undoubtedly readable beyond traditional action movies, Die Hard changed the genre forever. Its triumph resides in the complexity of John McClane. Place any other hero-type in his stead and Die Hard fails. As he fights to restore his masculinity (his marriage), Gruber and Nakatomi Plaza help the process along. Rarely would a potential blockbuster take such risks in storytelling, by offering a hero whose vulnerability and humanism outweighs the picture’s violence. We have since seen countless attempts to recreate or pay homage to what Willis and McTiernan created in 1988, with none coming close to the original. Here we get a torrent of both believable characters and expertly-arranged action, making it the best-loved action movie of its kind.
Further Die Hard reading:
Die Hard 2: Die Harder
Die Hard With a Vengeance
Live Free or Die Hard