Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Die Hard or The Problem with Action Movies

The idea that sequels and reboots are endemic only to this period in time is laughable. Hollywood was founded on stealing ideas and remakes. In that period it was mostly stealing from plays and books. If you look at the film Nosferatu, now considered to be a classic, it was simply a way of making Dracula when the estate said no. They simply changed a few bits and went ahead anyway.  Actually there was plenty of stealing, literally.  They actually placed signs in the background of the film as proof one company filmed it and not others so another company couldn’t just steal the reels.  Not a surprise when you find out that film had Edison as an early proponent.

Every once and a while there is a benchmark film that defines, or rather redefines, a genre. Die Hard is one of those movies. Interestingly enough Die Hard started its gestation as a sequel to Commando. This is not entirely uncommon. Quite often a script, an idea, or another intellectual property will be transformed entirely and laid over onto existing characters. The laughable sequel Die Hard 2 was based on the book “58 minutes”. A better example of an extreme makeover is Beverly Hills Cop. It was originally a vehicle for Stallone. The movie was changed heavily once Eddie Murphy, then contractual allowed to still be funny, was attached and a good deal of the film, notably the supercop speech, was improvised.  Watch that scene and you’ll notice John Ashtone (Taggart) is squeezing his nose and looking down trying not to laugh.  Judge Reinhold (Billy Rosewood)  was apparently pinching his inner thigh.

But Die Hard was so good it ended up setting back action films for decades because it became a formula. What was fresh then is now a bit played out. But subsequent copycat films have failed to follow its subtlety and expert hand. Die Hard, even though it was an action film, was actually a good piece of cinema that still stands up.

The first two shots of the movie speak volumes.  They set up important elements of the story with nuance. The first shot is a of plane landing (going from the right of the screen to the left). This usually indicates coming from the east and entering the west. The second shot is a close up of wedding ring. This sets up the most important element of the film. This is the first struggle introduced in the movie. The terrorists/thieves are introduced after the marriage problems of the McClane’s.  Shortly after the films shows McClane’s gun, the suspicion of the passenger who has sitting next to him, and the enormous stuffed bear (although Iron Man 3 wins at the ridiculously sized stuffed bear contest).  McClane explains he is a cop and this soothes the passenger’s suspicion.  This is the guy who indirectly causes McClane to have bloody feet later in the movie.  He explains to deal with stress you makes fists with your feet on the carpet.

Most stories have two plots. Generally there is the external struggle and the internal struggle. The better stories untie these two often disparate struggles and have them strengthen each other. We watch our protagonist along his or her path as they attempt to get past their hurdles. In Die Hard we are first introduced to the complication of John McClane’s marriage. The proud New York City cop has to deal with the success of his wife.  He wants her to give up her high paying business job and move back to the East coast to only be a mother to his children and a wife to him. To him their success is his success. He is trapped in the older mentality of the husband being the solitary provider and the decision maker. But this is a movie emblematic of it’s time. Women are entering the work place (Holly), Japanese businesses (Nakatomi Corporation) are buying up America and coked out yuppies (Ellis) run rampant.

Part of what sets Die Hard apart from other films is the realism of its characters. They aren’t simply one note stand ins. They have realistic relationships and reactions. It isn’t just bad guy #4 and #5.  There is sympathy for the normally unlikable characters; like Hans, Ellis and Karl.  It also had innovative, at the time especially, camera work.  The uses of the frame helped subtly tell internal feelings.  This is what film can do and books can’t.  Books can tell the inner thoughts of the characters while film is not only limited to facial expression unless it is under the direction of hacks (more explosions to cover up my laziness and incompetence!).

When we first see Holly she is among the crowd far below President Takagi (a not so subtle spatial reference to his power over those below).  Shotly after in her office (Holly Genero) we see pictures of her with the kids.  Then the audience finally sees a picture of John linking the two characters.  She turns the chair to obscure that picture further hinting at the trouble between them.  Then she puts the picture down so John is obscured.  This is important much later as Hans doesn’t see the face and the link.

Meanwhile John is in the limo and sitting upfront with Argyle.  The film is desperately trying to show how likable but out of touch he is.  The shows he is unused to limos, that he is comfortable with the working man, resistant to trappings of class, and grouchy (but in an endearing way).  When John gets to the building and walks through the lax but ever present and sophisticated security he notices Holly is listed under Gennero, her maiden name, and not McClane.

The inevitable argument between the two ensues and Holly walks out.  John shows he is upset with himself and not just the situation by banging his head on the door frame.  At this time he is making the mistakes of walking around bare footed.

The terrorists are introduced to the sound of music as they are calmly and methodically entering the Nakatomi building.  Fun note the truck they arrive in has ‘Pacific Courier’ on it. This translates to ‘Bringer of Peace’.  The guards are quickly disposed of and they have started to take control. At this point we have no idea why they are there.  Previous to this it was simply a melodrama about a cop stuck in the past and his wife who is dangerously close to leaving as he is forcing a choice between a successful career she chose and the life he chose for her.  Now it becomes, almost reluctantly an action movie.  The terrorists show some really personality here which is useful so they aren’t in people’s minds simply dude with a shotgun, gun with funny hair, the one who talks.  We know that there are two brothers;  the nerdier one (Tony), made obvious by his glasses and the fact he is hacking into the phone lines; and the burlier one (Karl) who delights in pushing around Tony.  He pulls out chainsaw while he is brother is work forcing him to sweat and work rapidly.  He risks an alarm and jeopardizing the plan to tease his brother.

McClane escapes into the stairwell once the fireworks start sadly still in bare feet.  He tried to stop the whole thing by pulling the fire alarm by the switchboard now operated by the terrorists stops this attempt.  Nerdy brother Tony confronts McClane but dies in the confrontation.  McClane shows his sense of humor and dressed him in a santa outfit.  Ho Ho Ho indeed.  This gives Karl an immediate need to kill McClane beyond simply he is a bad guy and John is a good guy.  Yay layers!  Like an ogre, or onion.  Or a parfait.  Everyone loves a parfait.  But let’s ignore the scene by scene breakdown.

Die Hard can be enjoyed as a dude simply shooting other dudes.  But it is so much more than that.  We have smart inventive characters.  Plot twists.  Yeah, they aren’t terrorists they’re just thieves, really good thieves.  Plus it had some rather snappy dialogue.

Supervisor: [as McClane tries to call up police] Attention, whoever you are, this channel is reserved for emergency calls only.
John McClane: No fucking shit, lady. Does it sound like I'm ordering a pizza?

While John is battling the bad guys Holly is trying to remain hidden and not be a pawn in the game.  Her boss Takagi, whom she tried to protect, already died violently.  There was a nice touch with Karl and Theo (the hacker) betting over the ending of the negotiation.  She now gets to see the infuriating side of her husband as a good thing.  His never-ending stubbornness and sense of humor are good in this situation.  It reaffirms to her that he is out there trying to save everyone.

Ginny: [Karl smashes a table of glasses in fury] God. That man looks *really* pissed.
Holly Gennero McClane: He's still alive.
Ginny: What?
Holly Gennero McClane: Only John can drive somebody that crazy.

Now it seems ridiculous that a beat cop could eventually bring down a group of well-prepared bad guys replete with Hans Gruber at the helm.  But the film treads lightly here.  Treating it as every second that he could, and should by all rights, be dead.  The first person he killed (Tony) died accidently when his neck was broken).  He fails in jumping in the elevator shaft and barely makes it to the vent to crawl through.  His feet were bloody due to having to run through broken glass.  He struggles on valiantly each time only barely surviving.  Jumping off the building with the fire hose attached he doesn’t cleanly make it inside.  The glass repels him.  His bloody feet leave red imprints.  He has to shoot the glass to get inside and even then he almost dies when the metal part attached to the hose falls dragging him with it.  At the end he is outgunned but he still prevails by his snarky comments and catching Gruber off guard.  He tells a joke and the all laugh.  Giving him long enough to shoot one of the henchmen and wound Gruber.  But we’ll jump back to that.

In these types of movies there is always the guy on the inside who sympathizes with the hero who gives him encouragement and moral support while he is fighting alone.  In this case we have Al the Twinkie enthusiast.  Surprisingly twinkies have played an important role in two of my favorite movies.

Dr. Peter Venkman: How's the grid holding up?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Not good.
Winston Zeddemore: Tell him about the Twinkie.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What about the Twinkie?

But I digress.  Al and “Roy” (McClanes cowboy persona) are linked by camera framing.  Whenever we see someone in the film talk to another character over phone or walkie talkie we see them in their respective side of the frame; one on the left and the other on the right.  Although they aren’t in the same space they are joined by this framing.  It’s done the same with Hans and McClane but this sets them up as adversaries and opposites.  The moments of levity in the film allow dark moments like Al’s explanation of never firing a gun. He admits to having killed a kid.  This informs much about the character.

While John is street smart Hans is book smart.  While Hans is tactical John is quick witted.  They both test each other.  One of the best sequences is when McClane finds Hans and Hans pretend to be an employee.  Looking at the list of names on the wall by the elevator McClane quizzes him.  Hans responds Bill, Clay and we see on the wall W. Clay confirming his deceit.

Back to Hans last moments.  He grabs onto Holly securing in his graps her watch.  The watch introduced earlier by the smug, and now dead, Ellis, is a symbol of her choice of work over marriage.  John relases the watch from her simultaneously defeated the bad guys and resolving, metaphorically, their marriage issues.  Or at least for the time being.

A film this good left a lasting impression.  The following four entries into the series all looked up their predecessor and all failed spectacularly.  The fourth and fifth movies turned the down on his luck cop into a superhero.  In the fifth entry the heroes simply leap through windows unaware of how they might land to escape.  The second movie had boring plot twists, boring bad guys, and removed any and all subtlety.  Also it added crappy effects and bad camera work.  The third film was probably the closest to the first but had a rather unenlightened ending.

But Die Hard can be seen in countless other movies from karate films like The Raid: Redemption (die hard with kicking, also killing a dude with a door which was way more awesome than it sounds) or Jean Claudes rather boring Sudden Death (replace the Nakatomi building with a Hockey arena and add mullets, splits and bad acting, sorry Powers Boothe).  It can also be seen in the surprisingly not awful Dredd reboot which was creatively named Dredd.

The problem often times with imitation is missing the point.  You copy the swagger the style but not the substance.  Other films just put up a super hero, a nigh invulnerable demi god who cannot possibly lose.  The pleasure is not in the conflict or its resolution as there is no real conflict just a minor inconvenience.  The audience know the hero will win there is no suspense, no tension.  The hero waltzes through danger with nary a scratch.  But in Die Hard John McClane is all scratches, gun shots, bloody feet, narrow escapes and heaps of luck.  Other action movies focus on building up an icon who is so indomitably badass that the pantheon of bad guys thrown his way as fodder seem comical.

Is it fair to say that Die Hard has really ruined action movies?  Not really, but every hack no uses that as blueprint.  After Fight Club came out we had all these other movies starting near the end or featuring twist endings revealing the protagonist not to be who they think they are.  But Hollywood will simply continue to recycle ideas until they are used up and shallow husks.  Until then Die Hard will be my Christmas tradition.  YKYMF!


Ben

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Thanks for posting. You are awesome!