I Hate Myself And I Wanna Die Hard

I know that this isn’t a statement that will send shockwaves through the internet, or cause the nine people reading this to spit out any beverage they might currently be consuming in shock, but it must be said: Die Hard is the best, you guys. A surprise success in 1988, Die Hard is widely regarded today as one of the greatest action movies of all-time. It launched Bruce Willis into stardom, created a lucrative franchise and served as the go-to action movie to rip off until The Matrix took over towards the end of the 90s. For an entire decade, a standard movie-pitch would include the phrase “like Die Hard, but on a ____________!” with a multitude of examples including Die Hard on a Bus (Speed), Die Hard On a Plane (Air Force One) and Die Hard on a Plane But With Nicholas Cage (Con Air) until, as the story goes somebody tried pitching Die Hard in an Office Building, apparently unaware that the original movie took place in one. Needless to say, it deservedly had a big influence on Hollywood, which is why the franchise is still being run into the ground to this day.

Although it is always difficult to say what exactly it is about any given form of entertainment that causes it to capture the imagination (and cash) of audiences, the original Die Hard deserves to be lauded for its quality, having far more going for it than being just a mindless, explosion-fueled blockbuster. It has a perfectly crafted screenplay containing witty dialogue, set pieces that are entertaining but remain logical, entertaining characters, snappy pacing and serves as a textbook example of using the most basic elements of storytelling. The creator of Community, Dan Harmon, uses the story of Die Hard to help aspiring filmmakers who need help constructing a story themselves on the Chanel 101 website.

John McTiernan, a director with definite action pedigree (he also did Predator and The Hunt For Red October) helps the strong screenplay work on screen, with action scenes that are both visceral and clear. Contrary to many modern action films, it is always easy to know what is happening and to who and the violence has a weight behind it. He also gets great performances out of the actors involved. Most obviously this means Bruce Willis on one of the pleasing occasions when he’s in Give A Fuck Mode and the Shakespearean class of Alan Rickman. It also includes the smaller roles like Hart Bochner as quintessential 80’s sleazebag Ellis, the late Paul Gleason as the blowhard deputy chief of police and that one Asian dude from every 80s movie:

 

 And of course there’s Reginald VelJohnson as Al Powell, the lovable cop who goes through a touching journey by falling in love with John McClane, putting the fact that he shot a child (!?) behind him and in the end, learning the joy of killing people all over again. Have I mentioned how Die Hard is the best?  I know it seems like I’m giving the movie too much credit in a rush to stroke the ego* of Bruce Willis or whatever, but since Die Hard is used in film schools and university courses worldwide as an example of great filmmaking, including a Perspectives of Film module in UCD, fuck you, I have academic credibility to back me up.  With all this in mind, it’s easier to see why Die Hard became a popular franchise, which leads me finally to my point: stop making more of them, for crying out loud.

Now I do not have any major problems with the first couple of sequels to Die Hard. They’re not masterpieces but they both have some good stuff in them and are a perfectly reasonable way to pass an afternoon.  When it comes to Die Hard sequels though, I’m going to count to three, there will not be a four. There certainly won’t be a five. As sequels tend to do, each sequel to Die Hard had to get bigger and bigger in scale, until they went past the point of ridiculousness and collapsed in on themselves. This month sees the release of A Good Day To Die Hard, although at this stage is might as well be called Die Hard: Another One. The movie stars Bruce Willis as John McClane as Bruce Willis and Australian actor Jai Courtney as a block of wood. Or his son or whatever. Although I have not and will not see the film, from the advertising I know that it features Russia, sexy ladies in catsuits and the promise of plenty of loud explosions to distract you from the dank hopelessness of your own existence.

 

What made the original film work was the fact that John McClane was just an ordinary cop surviving by the skin of his teeth, a man “in the wrong place at the wrong time” as they say. Sure he made jokes and committed crazy acts of violence, he’s an action hero. But he still came across like a real person with whom we can connect. He gets his feet cut up, he experiences fear, he realises he was a jerk to his wife and decides to change. He is a good character. Yet as the sequels kept going on he lost all of that. When I saw Die Hard 4 as a teenager, I liked it (teenagers don’t know anything) but looking back on it now, it is an experience completely void of tension. Once you’ve seen someone kill a helicopter with a car or walk on a fucking jet plane, your suspension of disbelief plummets quicker than Hans Gruber being dropped off the Nakatomi Plaza and you have no more reason to care about what you are seeing. Now in 2013 in Live and Let Die Hard, McClane is an invincible super hero, rolling his eyes with bemusement at yet another kerfuffle he’s managed to get into, firing off as many quips as bullets while he blows Russia to smithereens, a complete disconnect from reality with nothing at stake and no reason to care.

When McClane said “yippee ki yay, motherfucker” in Die Hard, there was a reason, he was showing defiance to a threatening man who called him a cowboy by channelling his inner Roy Rogers. It was his way of standing up to the danger he was facing. In Come Die Hard With Me he says it because it’s a catchphrase. What’s more, he presumably doesn’t even say motherfucker, just as in Die Hard 4, as both movies are PG-13/15A in order to squeeze more people into those theatres so Bruce Willis and Hollywood executives can stick another butler made out of caviar into their solid-gold houses. At some point John McClane the person was killed and replaced with the DieHardotron 3000, an unbreakable machine whose only emotion is an apparent racial hatred of helicopters.

Scoff if you will, but to me Die Hard is great cinema. Like the early Alien or George Romero films, by serving as the pinnacle of their genres they are almost elevated above them (that’s the dash of pretension for this blog entry done). But, just like um...the later Alien or George Romero films, the Die Hard franchise is a dead horse of brand recognition being beaten for every last penny, long past the point of anyone being interested in making art, or even just solid entertainment. Right down to the cutesy “Yippee Ki Yay Mother Russia” on the poster, Once Bitten, Twice As Die Hard is a cynical exercise in rich people deciding to make money and poor people deciding that they have nothing better to do. It is ironic that it will be in cinemas around Valentine’s Day, as it is quite clearly a project completely void of passion or love from anyone involved. Do yourself a favour and do absolutely anything else other than disrespecting the memory of one of the iconic action movies by passively trudging into the cinema to watch a beige time-devourer like Oh God Why Won’t This Franchise Die Hard.

*penis