Die Hard (Widescreen Edition)
by John McTiernan
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia, Bruce Willis, Paul Gleason, Reginald VelJohnsonDirector: John McTiernan
Brand: Twentieth Century Fox
Producer: Beau Marks
Producer: Charles Gordon
Producer: Joel Silver
Producer: Lawrence Gordon
Writer: Jeb Stuart
Writer: Roderick Thorp
Writer: Steven E. de Souza
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language); German (Original Language); Italian (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 131 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-09-07
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Movie Reviews of Die Hard (Widescreen Edition)
Movie Review: One of the top five action movies ever made.
Summary: 5 Stars
This really is a terrific action movie. It's not perfect; I concur with another reviewer here who noted that in order to make the hero, John McClane, seem more heroic, they made the LAPD (except for Sgt. Powell) and the FBI look like hyper-aggressive morons, and it wasn't really necessary, as they could have been portrayed as competent law enforcement officers who just got outwitted by an adversary who did his homework and read their anti-terrorist playbook ahead of time, and so anticipated their every move. A minor quibble is McClane's carrying a loaded gun on a commercial airliner. I've been a cop for the last five years, and a detective for almost the last two, and I can tell you that unless you are on official business for your department, such as prisoner transport, for example, you are NOT going to be allowed to carry a gun aboard a passenger jet, badge or no badge. In fact, until the passage of the National Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act in July of 2004, a cop had no more legal right to carry a gun in another state than any ordinary citizen did. But this is the kind of detail most people probably wouldn't notice, and the writer was obliged to arm Officer McClane somehow in order to make it plausible for him to survive his first encounter with one of the terrorist hostage takers. The rest of the movie is top notch, the action is gripping, the movie is fast paced and exciting, the actors are perfectly cast, and the hero, being human and vulnerable, was a refreshing change from the invincible quasi-superheroes that dominated action films in the years before "Die Hard" hit the theaters.
Most people have probably never read the book this movie was based on, Roderick Thorpe's "Nothing Lasts Forever". And most are probably also unaware that that book was a sequel to a novel called "The Detective", which was made into a film of the same name starring Frank Sinatra in 1968. The hero's name in both novels, and in the Sinatra film, was Joe Leland. I guess that didn't sound macho enough for the writers or the director. There were a lot of other changes from the book as well. Leland is a retired cop, and about twenty years older than McClane. He's now a pretty highly regarded security and anti-terrorist consultant -- which makes it more plausible and realistic for him to have a gun, but the movie makers probably changed this not only to make McClane younger, but to make him more of an "everyman" than a highly trained anti-terrorism specialist would have been. Given the superhero characters like Rambo so prevalent up to that time, this may have been a very wise decision for broadening the movie's appeal. Leland comes to visit his daughter, not his wife (whom he divorced, and she later died) at Klaxon Oil's skyscraper in Los Angeles. Unlike the movie which cut to scenes focused on both the terrorists and the hostages, as well as the LAPD and FBI outside, the book only follows Leland, so unless he's spying on the bad guys or fighting them, we don't know what they're doing at any given moment. Also, whereas in the movie, the terrorists are actually just using terrorism as cover for a robbery, in the book, they really are terrorists with a political agenda. Klaxon Oil is involved in corrupt dealings with the miltary junta ruling Chile. Leland's daughter may, it turns out, be willingly involved in these corrupt dealings (at least Leland believes she is), and she gets her comeupance too. Where McClane's wife was rescued, Leland's daughter goes out the window with the head terrorist (who is called Anton "Red Tony" Grueber, instead of Hans Grueber).
But a surprising amount of the book made it into the film. Most of the action sequences, from throwing a dead terrorist out the window to attract the attention of the police, to dropping a C4 laden chair down an elevator shaft, to taping a gun to his back for the final showdown were taken from the book. So are many others. Most of the characters from the book made it to the movie in at least very similar form to their book prototypes: good guy Al Powell, bureaucratic stuffed shirt Dwayne T. Robinson, savage Karl and his brother whom the hero kills, and even the slimy Ellis.
Some things, however, are very different. McClane is far more of a wiseass than Leland. Klaxon Oil is changed to the Nakatomi Corporation in the movie. As I've read elsewhere, this was probably done to reflect the concerns about Japanese companies buying out American ones that were really a big issue in the '80s, but the ironic result of this is that the 1979 book is less dated than the 1988 movie. The Japanese economy is simply no longer the alarming juggernaut it appeared to be in the 1980s, and those concerns have faded into history, but "big oil" is as much of an ogre to many as it ever was. The overall tone of the movie is much lighter. Not only does McClane's wife not do a two-and-a-half gainer out of a high rise window the way Leland's daughter does, but the issues are a lot more black and white. The movie terrorists (who are not really terrorists) are unadulterated bad guys. The book's terrorists (who really are terrorists) have a legitimate reason to hate Klaxon Oil, and it's a reason that even Leland agrees with. However, as they are ruthless terrorists, they are still the enemy. But it's interesting to note that Leland himself, after he kills the terrorists, fulfills their goal of throwing Klaxon's bonds, documents and money out the windows to the people below. He does it because he regards Klaxon's corruption as the ultimate cause of his daughter's death. In the book, of course, the terrorists have no such selfless aims. And while some might decry this as Hollywood wimping out yet again and compromising the artistic intergrity of a film by caving in to public desire for happy endings, I personally regard this as an actual improvement over the book. After all, there are any number of movies featuring terrorists as villains. I think it was brilliant to portray thieves masquerading as terrorists in order to carry out their plan. Think about it. What better cover could there be in this day and age of terrorism for such a high profile and high stakes heist? It's fiendishly clever when you think of it, and would cause the authorities to approach the entire incident from the wrong direction entirely. Everything that they would thus be trying to anticipate would be wrong, and almost their every move thus miscalculated. I think that was a great story idea, and it's part of what makes this movie so entertaining. Action movies are all too often mindless, overladen with special effects, and formulaic. This one was innovative and clever, balanced effects with great acting by a great cast, and remains as exciting and entertaining to watch now as it was nearly twenty years ago.
Summary of Die Hard (Widescreen Edition)
High above l.A. terrorist have seized a building taken hostages and declared war. But one man has managed to escape dectection and off-duty cop. Hes alone tired and the only chance anyone has. Bruce willis is john mcclane newly arrived in l.A. To spend a quiet christmas with his estranged wife. Studio: Tcfhe Release Date: 10/17/2006 Starring: Bruce Willis Bonnie Bedilia Run time: 132 minutes Rating: RSimilar DVD Movies
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