The 1980s were an interesting time for action films. The feel-good artificial superiority of the American way of life espoused by Reagan’s America was best reflected at the time by the action heroes on the big screen. I remember the 80s as being the time of Rocky and Rambo, of looking at the screen and seeing grotesque (maybe not to Daisy, who was crawling at this time, but definitely grotesque to me) images of Governor Schwarzenegger (then an up-and-coming action star) as he wreaked mayhem on bad guys with films such as “Commando,” “Raw Deal”, and “Red Heat.” The steroided denizens of the action movie universe almost made one feel sorry for the villains…almost. Most of the villains in these single note action extravaganzas could barely understand their own machinations, much less be a proper foil for the action star of the day. Furthermore, as a young, impressionable male of the era, I knew that I could never hope to emulate these steroid poster boys in any way, shape or form. The stories were interchangeable, the action was over the top, the villains were laughable, and the dialogue (if you could call it that) was utterly forgettable. This was the status of the action film circa 1988. This was before John McClane.
John McClane was everyman. He was balding, did not have a chiseled physique, did not have a happy marriage, and was cynical in every way. McClane was someone that everyone could relate to. We all knew guys like McClane…at least on the outside. The difference between McClane and other guys rested with the intangibles. As a man perennially caught in the wrong place at the wrong time with the odds stacked hopelessly against him, what chance did McClane have armed with a single automatic pistol and his spirit? The answer, it turned out, was more than the better armed and prepared villains. “Die Hard” exploded (I know…a clichéd phrase, but apropos) onto screens and into the cultural zeitgeist on July 15, 1988 (wow, has it really been almost 20 years?). The film has excellent pacing. We meet officer McClane as he is flying to California to meet up with his estranged wife and children. He figures that he will meet his wife at her place of work (the Nakatomi skyscraper) and the two of them may or may not be able to reconcile. While there, Officer McClane falls into the middle of a heist masterminded by Hans Gruber (portrayed in a tour de force performance by Alan Rickman). I liken everything up until the take over to a roller coaster being pulled up the first giant hill. Once Gruber’s minions seize control of the building, the audience is hurtled over the top into a wild ride where what we have learned in Action Films 101 does not matter. We see McClane gradually get beaten and bloody throughout the film, but he never quits. He is the only one who is trying to stop the bad guys, and his sole motivation is to save his wife. There are several memorable (even classic) scenes in this film: 1) the explosion that takes out an entire floor of the skyscraper, 2) the banter between Al (Reginald VelJohnson (better known as Carl from “Family Matters”)) and McClane, 3) ANY of Gruber’s dialogue in the film, 4) the helicopter/rooftop action sequence- “Oh God, please don’t let me die”, 4) the final showdown between Karl (Alexander Godunov) and McClane, 6) “shoot the glass”, 7) “Yipee-ki-yay, M-F’er”, and 8) the fate of Hans Gruber.
Sadly, this film was followed by the immediately forgettable “Die Hard 2.” The third film in the series, “Die Hard With a Vengeance,” was released in 1995 and worked as an action film. There was no motivation, however, for John McClane doing what he was doing. There was a loose connection with the villain (Jeremy Irons) and Hans Gruber, but the motivation for John McClane was not the same as it was in earlier films. The writers, however, crafted a film where McClane was merely a guy doing the things he does because no one else can. Quite wisely, they kept his family out of this and made John a failure in life. John’s character is one that rises to the occasion in times of great threats, but he cannot cope with the mundaneness of a normal life. With repeated viewings, I grew to enjoy this film as a good film in its own right.
Now we reach 2007. The action film landscape has changed considerably. With the advent of CGI and the decline in actual live stunts, the movie going audience is much more sophisticated when it comes to the action films that they enjoy. If you do not believe me, try sitting through a mid-80s action film now. The films are just not watchable (save for “Die Hard”) on any meaningful level. In an effort to recapture some of the taste of the 80s, Stallone and Willis have both returned to the scenes of their greatest successes. Stallone was first with his release of “Rocky Balboa,” a fitting bookend to the “Rocky” saga. Stallone is currently working on the similarly titled “John Rambo,” starring the granddaddy (literally at this point) of 80s action stars. It seemed only fitting that Bruce Willis would resurrect John McClane, and thankfully, he made sure that audiences would recognize the character when he agreed to star in “Live Free or Die Hard.” In this film, McClane is older. His daughter Lucy (seen briefly as a child in the original “Die Hard,” hates her father so much that she goes by her mother’s surname. John is still a loner when he is called on to do something that should be quite ordinary-escort a “person of interest” to FBI headquarters in Washington DC over the Fourth of July. Instead, John is drawn into the center of a master criminal’s plan to cripple the US infrastructure through the shutdown of the computer networks while the criminal attempts to upload files from a secure location in Maryland. McClane is “an analog guy in a digital world,” but as he soon shows, in a battle between a sledgehammer and a computer, the sledgehammer will usually win. This film, like “Transformers” before it, is definitely a “check your brain at the door” action film, but it succeeds in its mission to entertain. It was refreshing to see classic action filmmaking even in the midst of a few instances of CGI in the film. Favorite moments from this film included (for me) sequences in one of the DC tunnels, the action sequence at the power grid location in West Virginia, and the final desperate action sequence featuring McClane against a fighter jet and thousands of tons of falling highway. The villain was not especially strong, but as no one could top Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber from the first one, I could forgive this. John’s personal stake in this film was the safety of his daughter; therefore, it was easy to understand why he did not choose to walk away from it when he did not have to go after the bad guys. Even without the bad guys, however, McClane does a great job of explaining why he still tries-because no one else will do it.
The film is, of course, filled with ludicrous stunts and lots of dead bad guys, but gone are the horrible puns associated with the action genre of the 1980s. In the 2000s, death is not something to make light of, and the fact that the audience did not respond negatively to a fake shot of the U.S. Capitol blowing up told me that we have healed a bit since 9/11. The patriotism from the film came not from a partisan stance on either side but from McClane himself. The script is not the best in the series, but the action stunts and Bruce Willis’s now-iconic portrayal of the true “last action hero” allowed the film to rise above mediocrity into a level higher than that of most of this summer’s films.
Check your brain at the door and spend some time with John McClane. Welcome back, old friend.
Artful's scale: better than Die Hard 2, but not as good as Die Hard or Die Hard With a Vengeance.
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