The Perfect Lean, Mean, Macho Machine

By Marco Lanzagorta, PopMatters. Posted April 6, 2008.

Essentially perfect, Die Hard is much more than an exciting and visually stunning film. Indeed, this flick portrays a sophisticated political discourse that deeply resonates with a variety of social and economic anxieties that characterized the Reagan years. Furthermore, Die Hard defined the narrative and visual structure of the action genre for the years to come, and delineated the popular representation of masculinity during the 1990s.

Since its memorable theatrical opening in the summer of 1988, Die Hard has spawned countless imitations and generated three official follow ups, Die Hard 2, Die Hard: With a Vengeance, and Live Free or Die Hard. The Die Hard sequels not only give a consistent story-arc to its main character, the intrepid John McClane (Bruce Willis), but they are also faithful to the brutality and visual excesses that characterize the original. Thus, it should not be surprising that all these movies enjoyed overwhelming success at the box office. As such, the films in the Die Hard franchise are integral to the history of American cinema.

Unquestionably, Die Hard is one of the leanest films ever made. Indeed, the plot of Die Hard is so tightly constructed, that each and every single scene has an aesthetic and/or narrative purpose. As most movie buffs know, Die Hard tells the story of McClane, a troubled New York cop who travels to Los Angeles on Christmas day to attempt reconciliation with his wife, Holly Genaro (Bonnie Bedelia). A successful manager at a prominent Japanese firm located in the Nakatomi Plaza skyscraper, Holly works for Mr. Takagi (James Shigeta).

At the same time, a team of German mercenaries led by the ruthless Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) take over Nakatomi Plaza posing as terrorists. Showcasing a superb classical education, exceptionally good manners, and an exquisite taste for designer suits, Gruber may well be the most fascinating, intimidating, and heartless villain to haunt the big screen. Barely escaping the initial onslaught, and isolated from the exterior world, McClane spends the rest of the film playing a brutal game of cat and mouse with Grubber and his goons.

Die Hard further complicates the plot by presenting two intriguing double-crosses. First, Gruber is not a terrorist, but a thief looking to steal the $640 million dollars in bearer bonds kept in the vaults of the Nakatomi building. And second, the FBI promises unarmed helicopters to evacuate the terrorists and the hostages, but instead they arrive armed to the teeth and willing to sacrifice 25 per cent of the hostages in the ensuing shootout.

Die Hard is based on Nothing Lasts Forever, the rather obscure 1979 novel written by Roderick Thorp as a sequel to his previous book, The Detective (1968). The differences between the film and the book are actually telling. In the novel, Joe Leland (renamed John McClane in the movie version) is a retired police detective who visits his daughter in a Los Angeles skyscraper. And Anton "Tony" Gruber is a fanatical terrorist embracing an ideological agenda that condemns the greedy exploits of a transnational oil company.

Thus, the novel's aged hero agrees with the popular representation of masculinity from the era as exemplified by mature action movie actors in the likes of Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, John Wayne, Steve McQueen, and William Holden. And the fact that Gruber is indeed a terrorist with a real and palpable political agenda probably was due to the terrorist attacks that occurred during the Munich Olympic Games barely seven years before the publication of the book. As such, even though Nothing Lasts Forever presents an exhilarating adventure, it underscores a well-worn ideological discourse which was a reflection of its time.

According to Thorp, he was inspired by The Towering Inferno (1974), the quintessential disaster movie of the era, when he wrote Nothing Lasts Forever. And truth be told, such a cinematic muse is clearly evident in the visual construction of Die Hard. Indeed, just take a look at the original poster of Die Hard, which features the Nakatomi Plaza building in flames with helicopters flying around. This image is rather similar to the poster for The Towering Inferno.

However, besides Thorp's book we can also observe other strong literary influences that probably dictated the visual and narrative structure of Die Hard. One of these is J.G. Ballard's High Rise, the intriguing 1975 novel that presents a futuristic high rise building that becomes a brutal battleground between several factions of residents. Completely isolated from the exterior world, the tenants abandon their moral codes and hunt, ambush, and kill each other. Rather similar to William Golding's influential Lord of the Flies (1954), High Rise works as a striking metaphor for the isolationism and innate savagery that characterize Western culture.

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