So, “Die Hard” is legit one of the reasons why I embarked on this year’s cinematic journey. It was about this time last year when I heard everybody having the classic debate (“Is ‘Die Hard’ a Christmas movie?”) and I had to bow my head with the shameful shyness of a student hoping to not be called on. I hadn’t seen “Die Hard”, or D’Hard as it’s come to be known around our house, so I packed 51 films around it and here we are. Now that I've seen “Die Hard”, I must say—yes it's a Christmas movie, and a damn brilliant one at that!
Die Hard is about John McClane (played by greedy and lazy Bruce Willis, of course), NYPD detective and estranged husband/father, arriving in Los Angeles to reconcile with his wife Holly. He heads directly from LAX to the Nakatomi Tower where he hopes to run into Holly at her company’s Christmas party. That is, until German terrorist Hans Gruber (played brilliantly by the loved, late Alan Rickman) shows up. Gruber and his goons take the entire party hostage and get to work on cracking the company’s central safe when McClane begins subverting their plan, offing Gruber’s men one by one. Gruber repels police attacks but can’t manage to swat away fly-in-the-ointment McClane, who chips away at Gruber’s plan until it’s just Gruber, him, and a scotch-taped gun. Of course, McClain saves the day.
“Die Hard” could have easily been a stupid movie, but it somehow manages to comment on and enhance the action genre, while being endlessly fun. The film exists in a universe of action films (with references to Rambo, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the old westerns of Roy Rogers) and relishes in our American brashness and propensity for making things up as we go along (in contrast to Gruber’s exacting German strategy). I thought the film did a great job of developing McClain as a real-enough person and balanced his unnaturally good fighting skills by forcing him to operate with bare feet—as a mere man. I thought the John/Al radio relationship was better than the whole of “Lethal Weapon” and I loved the use of “Ode to Joy” throughout the film.
I’m sure the fact that I adored this film while shitting on the likes of "The Deer Hunter" or "Raging Bull" has something to do with my maturity, but I’d argue that I’m just responding to a well told story. With the exception of the “chief and federal cops were stupid while local and front-line cops were smart” trope, I thought the characters were freshly conceived and well developed. The film was fun and funny entertainment and right up my alley. I immediately recognized that this film holds up. Oh, and I finally understand why every-other action movie is referred to as “Die Hard on a ______.”