Die Hard
(McTiernan, '88)
Genre: Action
Background: While physical action has been an element of cinema all the way back to the silent era, whether you’re talking about certain daredevil comedians of the time, or such trigger-happy genres as War films or “yippee-ki-yay” Westerns (see what I did there?), I still agree with
Tom Breihan that the Action film didn’t really become a genre of its own until the 1960’s, when films like
The Dirty Dozen, Bullitt, &
The Wild Bunch provided the kind of over-the-top, intense stuntwork that helped to firmly establish the style. From there, the genre added a layer of urban grit throughout the 70’s, before the 80’s took it to brand-new heights of overkill (literally), perfect for the decade of excess, with their abundance of ‘roided-out biceps, gratuitous, machine gun-driven carnage, and unstoppable one man (or woman) armies. However, while the 80’s Action movie was basically a genre unto itself, and that era as a whole has proved to be the style’s golden age in retrospect, it still needed to be brought back down to Earth eventually, so it’s only fitting that, as the end of that decade approached, we would receive a movie that did just that, in the form of
Die Hard, a movie that would basically redefine the genre as we knew it.
You see, while director John McTiernan had his big breakthrough the previous year with fellow Action classic
Predator, a movie that already engaged in a certain amount of genre deconstruction itself, with a bit of a critique of American imperialism in Central America, and a certain famous scene of “impotent” gunfire destroying the jungle (and absolutely nothing else,
as you can see here), the first act of that film still engaged in the sort of one-liner spewing, balls (and knives) to the wall Arnie action that arguably made him the most iconic Action star all time, and, even though Schwarzenegger finally faces a physical challenge with the arrival of the titular creature later, he still manages to defeat it single-handedly after the Predator had already wiped out the squad of badasses that Arnold began the film with, which, in a manner, made him seem look like even
more of an unstoppable force onscreen than he was already, if that's possible.
How Die Hard Deconstructed It: Not so much with
Die Hard, which goes all-in with its deconstruction of the 80’s Action film, whether it be contrasting its main character with Rambo, having one character mock another’s comparison of the situation to the Vietnam War, or by name-dropping the aforementioned Schwarzenegger as well, which is ironic, since him and Stallone were both originally approached to star, which almost certainly would’ve resulted in a much more typical final product (like
Rambo III or
Red Heat, which both disappointed at the box office this same year).
Thankfully,
Die Hard ended up not being anything but a typical 80’s actioner, right from the ground floor (no pun intended) with its setting, which is a single skyscraper over the course of one night, a decision that not only adds a ton of claustrophobia and tension inbetween the literally explosive action, but showed a creative discipline on the part of the filmmakers, and functions as the first hint that this film is looking to strip away the excesses that the genre had accumulated over the course of the 80’s. And, while
Die Hard isn’t the first significant single-location Action film (hello,
Assault On Precinct 13), it still popularized the concept more than any other film, to the point that
“Die Hard On A X” is its own TV Tropes page, and without McTiernan’s film, we almost certainly wouldn’t have
The Rocks,
Air Force Ones, or the
Speeds of the world to enjoy (I also like the fact that there are so many copycats of this film now, some critics have absent-mindedly described a few of them as being “Die Hard in a skyscraper”; ha!)
Besides that,
Die Hard further deconstructs the genre with its main character, portrayed in a career-defining role by Bruce Willis, who, believe it or not, was actually a highly unlikely choice at the time, despite his current status as an Action star (which is the most due to this film, heh), since he was only known as a comedic TV actor then, due to his role on
Moonlighting, and his gig as a spokesman for Seagram’s Wine Coolers (
I kid you not). In fact, the latter job actually netted the rising star a bigger payday than he received for
Die Hard itself, and would explain the reports of audiences literally laughing when they saw him in the first trailers for the film, a response that actually lead Fox’s marketing department to de-emphasize his role in subsequent promotional material.
However, while the film's pre-release hype suffered from its lack of an established Action star (and the actor who played “Karl” would’ve made for a much more archetypal action star), I don’t think anyone can picture
Die Hard without Willis playing John McClane, as his nervous, smart-alec persona makes him perfect to play the schlub-y, blue-collar, fish-out-of-water everyman, the one who becomes an action hero not by casually volunteering for a suicide mission in a non-descript jungle somewhere in the developing world, but by accidentally ending up in the right place at the right time (although I’m sure he would argue the opposite), as he's visiting his wife’s officeplace Christmas party in the middle of Los Angeles while a team of heavily-armed mercenaries are coincidentally taking over the building at the same time, threatening the lives of everyone inside in the process, and forcing him into action.
To Be Continued...