25. Die Hard (1988) - Dir: John McTiernan
One of the most famous and talked about scenes in Die Hard is when John McClane is pinned down by Hans Gruber and a couple of gun-toting thugs, and the only way for him to escape is to run, barefooted, over a floor littered with shards of broken glass. Gruber, who has just had a curious encounter with McClane, knows that the hero is barefooted, and so he orders his men to shoot out all of the glass walls separating the rooms and cubicles surrounding McClane. The reason that McClane is shoe-less stems from a seemingly innocuous conversation he had with a fellow air-traveler during the opening minutes of the film. Unaccustomed to flying, McClane takes the advice of a more experienced traveler, and when he reaches his final destination, the Nakatomi Plaza where his wife works, he removes his shoes and “makes fists with his toes” on the carpet. Much too his surprise, the little trick works and helps to calm his nerves, however, it also sets up a long running series of gags and predicaments he must overcome, while also serving as a reminder of the hero's vulnerability.
John McTiernan's action masterpiece is full of such actions and set-ups: moments that are built upon consequence and tightly plotted events. I am not going to claim that everything in the film is result of logically executed action and reaction, there will always be someone to point out some small and overlooked detail, but enough of the pieces perfectly fit to make this a superior example of genre filmmaking. McTiernan directs the film with an uncanny eye for detail, and he leads us through the tensely-paced plot like a world-class tour guide. The sights and sounds we are shown almost always come back into play. McTiernan shows us the proverbial shotgun, and you better believe the shotgun gets used.
Die Hard benefits most from its amazing set and the ways in which it is used. All too often, the settings of many western action films can feel inconsequential, or interchangeable, and they are often left largely unused in any kind of meaningful and creative way. Such is not the case here. Die Hard's main attraction is the Nakatomi Plaza (a fiction setting made more prominent by its real-world presence), and McTiernen deftly wraps the film's action around the set creating a symbiotic relationship between the two. Like Dante traversing the various levels of Hell, McClane moves from floor to floor in the belly of his own towering inferno. From the lusciously furnished main floor, up through the bowels of the unfinished construction zone, onto the roof, and finally back down, only to be born again from an artificial natural-oasis in the midst of one of mankind's most striking, and phallic, marks on our planet.
With McTiernan as the guide through this dark tower, the characters become our eye-pieces and through their vision the story unfolds. Through the creative use of POV, we are always aware of the surroundings, the exits, the traps, and the obstacles over which McClane must traverse. We know where he must go and we know where the bad guys think he is because we are shown. During McClane's first close-encounter with the baddies, in a sequence of shots, were are shown his hiding place from his POV, a place of possible escape, and the same setting from the bad guy's POV. Through the use of triangulation, McTiernen sets up the geometry and space of the setting, thus allowing the audience to follow the action in a logical manner.
Again, this is just one example of a perfectly executed moment, and Die Hard is teeming with such moments. There is nary an artificial moment in the film. Practically everything we are shown fits within the surroundings, gets used in a meaningful way, and benefits the film's concisely plotted narrative. Die Hard is a film built upon carefully calculated moments of believable actions and reactions, all of which work within the confines of the film's milieu. Yes, often times the action is outlandish and over the top, but we are never asked to completely surrender to fantasy, nor is the well-being of its hero ever taken for granted. Die Hard moves fast, and with a purpose, and is simply one of the all time classics of the action genre. It is incredibly well made, highly entertaining, and rewarding across multiple levels.
