Latest / All The Right Movies / Die Hard (1988) | Ep. 32 - Part 1

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Die Hard (1988) | Ep. 32 - Part 1 · All The Right Movies

• 0:04
  All their movies. They've got the building.
• 0:08
  They have already. Killed 1 hostage.
• 0:10
  They've got the odds they've got his wife, no?
• 0:14
  No. Now he's got one night to get it
• 0:18
  all back. Do you really think you have a
• 0:20
  chance against us, Mr. Cowboy Yippee?
• 0:22
  Guy. Bruce Willis in 40 Stories of
• 0:27
  Sheer Adventure, Die Hard, Bet It Are Now playing in selected
• 0:31
  Cities. Starts Wednesday July 20th at
• 0:33
  theatres Everywhere. Die Hard was released in 1988 as
• 0:37
  a huge box office hit. The story of Every man, cop John
• 0:40
  McLean and his Christmas Eve mission to take down a group of
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  German thieves. The film launched the Hollywood
• 0:45
  career of * Bruce Willis and is today regarded as a festive
• 0:48
  classic and one of the definitive action blockbusters.
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  My Name is John and the guy is sitting on a beach earning 20%
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  or Westie. No fucking shit, lady.
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  Do I sound like a motor at a pizza?
• 0:59
  And Luke, hey. It's fricken Z talk.
• 1:03
  Welcome to the party pals ATR Emma in the Nakatomi to talk
• 1:06
  Willis Rickman and Roy Rogers. Only now we have a machine gun.
• 1:31
  Hello and welcome to All The Right Movies, a podcast that
• 1:35
  will blow you through the back wall of the theatre on classic
• 1:38
  and hit films. Yes.
• 1:40
  To start off the day, we have some bad news and that Matt
• 1:43
  won't be joining us for the rest of his life.
• 1:49
  Not really. He's not dead.
• 1:50
  He's he's one of us. Christmas party in a vest, no
• 1:53
  doubt. No doubt.
• 1:54
  That'll turn green soon. Exactly.
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  I quit the habit of a lifetime. We do have a festive feast for
• 2:01
  you, though, as this episode we're getting into the huge
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  1980s action and Christmas classic that is Die Hard.
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  Yes. Oh yeah.
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  Before we come out of the course for a few laughs, though, let's
• 2:11
  talk Patreon for once. Why not?
• 2:15
  If you like what we do on this, our ATRM Classic Podcast, and
• 2:18
  hopefully you do, you can help supporters keep on doing it by
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  becoming an ATRM Patron. Patrons get exclusive access to
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  our Bonus Podcast Double feature, and access to our
• 2:27
  entire archive of Bonus episodes and ATRM Classic episodes.
• 2:31
  The archive is a beast now, and we have many episodes in there.
• 2:36
  If you like classic action films like Die Hard, Aliens is there.
• 2:40
  If Bruce Willis is your guy, check out Pulp Fiction.
• 2:43
  Or if you're a fan of John McCain as a filmmaker, we've got
• 2:46
  Predator too. We.
• 2:48
  Haven't got Predator too. No, not Predator 2.
• 2:50
  No, patron is the only way though the last lot cannot be
• 2:54
  cut locally. So better than $640 million in
• 2:59
  negotiable bearer bonds, I would say.
• 3:01
  Probably about the same. About the same, yeah.
• 3:03
  Yeah, same value. So to find out more and sign up,
• 3:06
  please visit patreon.com/all the Right Movies.
• 3:09
  Or if you're an Apple Podcast user, you can subscribe directly
• 3:12
  on there now as well. Just look for the Subscribe
• 3:14
  button. Give it a click.
• 3:16
  There you are. Yes, please.
• 3:17
  Easy as that. Nice early Christmas.
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  Presents Lovely. For now, though, it's Christmas
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  Westy. It is.
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  The time of miracles. Yes.
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  So why are we talking about Die Hard?
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  Die hard. Everyone loves Die Hard.
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  Westy Bubly. Honestly, what a treat this film
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  is. Like an old friend of mine.
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  I absolutely love it. It's so comforting.
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  It's so good. It's so precise.
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  It never gets tired and never gets sick of it.
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  I don't think there's a scene that I called, like I've
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  literally just put it on this afternoon and you were recording
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  and I couldn't really drag myself away from it.
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  Think it's the first time I've ever turned it off to have to
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  come and talk about it. That's the only way I'll turn it
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  off. Such a vibrance to it, such an
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  energy to it. I can't remember the first time
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  I saw it. It just always seems to have
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  been there. It's that weekend film that I
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  would watch at any point and it would finish and I'll put it
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  straight back on again. I think it's a definitive action
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  film. I think it turned a lot of heads
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  when it came out. It broke the mold of the macho
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  bullshit in the late 80s and the mid 80s and the early 80s.
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  Really. It's a fantastic piece of work,
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  fantastic film. And hey, it's Christmas, which
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  we might as well talk about. First time you're celebrating,
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  Wesley? Fucking right.
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  It's the only time. Yeah, I mean a bit like Sergeant
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  Powell. I came to the party a little bit
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  late with Die Hard. And Twinkies.
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  And Twinkies. And Twinkies.
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  Yeah, I didn't see it when I was a kid or a teenager.
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  I think I was at least 20 when I saw it for the first time.
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  Yes, obviously by that point it already had a huge reputation as
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  one of the great action films. And I remember, despite having
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  high expectations, still being impressed by it and haven't seen
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  it many times since. I watched Die Hard most
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  Christmases. That reputation mostly has it
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  for good reason. I think we'll talk about Bruce
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  Willis and the role that made him a worldwide star pretty much
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  overnight. We'll talk about John Mcsiennan
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  and his reputation as a master of directing action sequences.
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  Lots more, too, of course, not least Alan Rickman.
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  And how today Die Hard has almost become like the blueprint
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  in lots of ways for action movies.
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  I mean, we've had Die Hard on a boat in Under Siege, Die Hard on
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  a plane in Air Force One, Die Hard on a bus in Speed, and now
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  here Die Hard on a podcast. Right.
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  Amazing. Where she's on the German
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  cigarettes, I think. I am just as explosive.
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  I've got the detonators. You will go.
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  So yeah, let's see where it goes.
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  OK, And Luke, how's Die Hard for you?
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  Well, I mean it's like Westie said, it's probably the
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  definitive action film and it's been a personal favorite of mine
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  since the lady the since it came out.
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  I remember coming out, my parents went to see it and I was
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  desperate to see it and it's just got it all.
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  It's got great writing and direction, exploding circular
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  discs, which I'd love always great if I can get my hands on
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  there. It's got a charm and enable lead
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  actor in Bruce Willis, one of the ultimate movie villains in
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  Hans Gruber. And I think the film as a whole
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  can be taken for granted because it naturally gets a spin every
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  Christmas. So the sheer movie making skill
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  on show I think is sometimes underappreciated, pretty fucking
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  underappreciated. So I think it shouldn't just be
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  filled under the do not open till Christmas genre.
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  Much like puppies, it's got so much more than a Christmas film,
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  if it even is a Christmas film. And obviously I don't need any
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  encouragement to talk about Dyad.
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  So Die Hard was produced by the Gordon Company in Silver
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  Pictures, distributed by 20th Century Fox and released on July
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  the 15th, 1988, like any good Christmas classic.
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  Filmed on location in Los Angeles, it was directed by John
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  McCain and then written by Jeb Stewart and Stephen E De Souser,
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  and it stars Bruce with us as John McLean, Bonnie Bedeli as
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  Holly Gennaro McLean, Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber, and
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  Reginald Val Johnson as Sergeant Al Powell.
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  Surely does. Let's go then, shall we?
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  Let's do it. Ellie, here we come.
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  Okay, it was the night before Christmas.
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  Or stick around for the beginning of die Hard Yippee.
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  Motherfucker. Oh, the weather outside is
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  frightful. But the fire is so delightful.
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  And since we've no place to go. Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it
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  snow. It doesn't show signs of
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  stopping. And I've bought some corn for
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  popping. The lights are turned way down
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  low. Let it snow.
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  Let it snow. Let it snow.
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  Die Hard doesn't hang about too long before getting straight
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  into it, and we're covering off the first act in some detail.
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  The big action sequences involving McLean and the German
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  brothers Grim, Tony and Carl are coming, but first we've got some
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  fiery character introductions. Oh yeah, Yep.
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  So we started the Nakatomi Plaza, New York cop John McLean
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  that arrived for his wife Holly's seemingly innocent
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  office Christmas party. But he's not alone.
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  A bunch of dangerous Deutschlanders led by Alan
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  Rickman's hands grew by gatecrash the party and take
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  hostages. How was the opening for you,
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  Luke? Yeah, an amazing opening.
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  And I really like the setup with the estranged married couple
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  John and Holly. Yeah.
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  And I think what's clear is that they very much love each other.
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  But there's obviously a history of domestic issues left
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  unresolved, and that's why John's here.
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  Yeah, a great divide. Yeah, there is.
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  Yeah. They're kind of walking on egg
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  shells a bit with each other, but they're keeping things on an
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  even keel. Cappy Roberts retired to Pomona,
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  but she's got a spare bedroom. They're making progress, but
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  John just can't help himself. Can't Can he not cringe every
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  time? Just fucking.
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  Need it? Complaining about her using a
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  maiden name. I mean, you know, I do get it.
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  If you come from New York to LA to see your wife and family for
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  the holidays, and you immediately find out that she's
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  changed her surname, you know that somethings wrong.
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  Something's in the post, but he just handles it all wrong and he
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  knows it. And the ripple effect of this
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  argument can be felt throughout the film.
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  It's John's motivation to save the hostages because his wife is
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  threatened. John is the slither of hope that
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  Holly has, of making it out alive, and it all feeds directly
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  into that bathroom scene where his feet are all messed up.
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  The emotion that that scene is charged by this one, I think
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  it's a it's a magnificent set up for the characters this.
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  It is. First off, for me, what kind of
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  office party takes place on Christmas Eve night.
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  I'm not going to that. No chance.
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  Japanese corporation, obviously. Yeah, really.
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  Highbrow string quartet and Beethoven.
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  Love it. Yeah, shaky.
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  And I'm not good enough all of a sudden.
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  Unbelievable. Imagine that on this big
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  quartet, shaky, spinning the cello.
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  Yeah, but the meeting between McLean and Holly, I mean, it's
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  not the most exciting the film gets, obviously, but I don't
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  think it's so important in creating a platform for the late
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  action sequences. And that sets up the characters
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  really effectively. So we care about the action does
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  when it comes. I mean, this is the only scene
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  that we get between McLean and Holly before Hands and the
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  Brothers Grimm show up. So they get one chance to get
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  this dynamic down. And the writers and Bruce Willis
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  and Bonnie Bedelia as the actors do a great job, I think, because
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  the relationship between McLean and Holly Powers, lots of the
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  film. Oh, it does.
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  What I don't like though is worst man in the world Harry
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  Ellis knocking about straight from the off.
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  Firstly, he's. Amazing.
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  Just. Shamelessly snorting coke of
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  Holly's desk. That's outrageous.
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  Unbelievable. He was just making a call.
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  And then he knows how he's got two kids.
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  He's trying to pick her up on Christmas Eve.
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  Yeah. And that laugh.
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  It's horrible. So horrible.
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  I'll tell you what else reminds me of now.
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  In real life. OK, Donald Trump junior right
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  off his head over the faded opinion of himself.
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  Same face. It's him throwing through.
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  So not the most entertaining scene.
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  Die hard maybe between Holly and McLean.
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  But I do think the like marital argument is one of the most
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  important. Yeah.
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  Oh yeah, it's. Greatest pieces of writing as
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  well. It starts the foreshadowing that
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  continues all the way through the dialogue.
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  And the argument was largely improvised by Bonnie Vidalia and
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  Bruce Willis. John Mcteon and Let Them Go and
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  Stephen D Sauza was on set. He took notes and incorporate
• 11:14
  the improvements of the dialogue back into the script.
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  Yeah, I think it's really well constructed, the scene a bit of
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  a cut above what you'd normally get for this kind of film.
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  It is, I think, yeah. But I'm not sure this was the
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  case in 1988 or not. Nowadays, I think Holly comes
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  across as way too good for McLean.
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  She's really, really intelligent, very successful,
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  extremely reasonable, and his values seem totally outdated.
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  He's one argument away from saying women just shouldn't have
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  jobs. Yeah.
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  Pretty much, yeah. You can see that they've been
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  together a long time though, and I think her life has improved
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  and his hasn't and I think he's more bitter about that.
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  Yeah, I think they were high school sweethearts or something
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  like that. She's grown up and he isn't.
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  Yeah. The backdrop out of the window
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  in Holly's office is obviously the earlier cityscape.
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  It was actually a 380 foot long matte painting with LED lights
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  added. DP Jan de Bond added a light
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  behind the painting which created the sunset effect.
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  Nice. And it I mean, it looks legit.
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  I've never ever called that one into question.
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  Never. That's massive as well.
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  That's a three. 180 foot, that is huge.
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  Fucking ridiculous. I'll go into a scene which
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  always kind of pulls at my heartstrings, because you know
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  what? I really like Takagi.
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  Nice, man. I really love the guy who's so
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  canny and when she's coming in and she's like, have you
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  introduced yourself? No, we've just been sticking
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  Spears in him. Of course we have.
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  He's just a really nice guy. And when he tells Alice that
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  he's a policeman, obviously he's been doing the court.
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  He's just looking after everybody.
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  I love them little moments, but the way he stands up for himself
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  and he holds his ground and that back and forth between him and
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  Hans and to go, he's just sweating, he's he's moving
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  around in the seat. It's a great, great performance
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  because you really feel it and it's just this ruthless nature
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  that comes across and you really care about Tekagi at this point,
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  Even though he hasn't had much screen time, it's really, really
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  brilliant and the way that he kills him is just so ruthless.
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  He does that count and you've seen it a million times, haven't
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  you? I'm just going to count the
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  three. It never happens.
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  No it. Never really happens, but this
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  time it's just bang and just that cuts.
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  Amazing where the blood hits the wall and then you get Mclean's
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  reaction. He's so precise but he's left or
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  right. Fucking mess there, but already
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  clean up. That's crazy.
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  See if you can dispose of. That yeah, excellent.
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  But I love the way this just introduces the character.
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  You think he's going to be a real big player, bang count with
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  three. He's out of there.
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  I think it just sets up hands through Takagi, which you really
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  like, and they put the effort in the light in that character, so
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  you can kind of despise hands a little bit more.
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  So I think it's a brilliant, brilliant set up again.
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  Yeah, yeah. I love the intro before this to
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  the Germans when they come marching off the truck into the
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  neck and tell me wow yeah, ownership European ponces.
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  Ponces I wouldn't get in the way.
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  I think it's a great touch. The way the hands of the crew
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  are all given names, though, it's not so great how the
• 13:53
  characters don't always actually speak German.
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  They just kind of yell German sounding noises a lot of the
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  time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, all that kind
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  of stuff. And yeah, later on, when Hansi
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  is Tricer den Fenster, that means shoot the window, not
• 14:08
  shoot the glass. I mean.
• 14:10
  Right. I think it is a German dub of
• 14:11
  Diehard. It must be all over the place.
• 14:13
  The German sloppers. Yeah, yeah.
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  I like the little side bet that Theo and Carl have here in that
• 14:18
  scene with Takagi. Enhance.
• 14:20
  Oh yeah. Theo has his money on Takagi not
• 14:22
  blabbing. Yeah.
• 14:23
  And that little look that hands gives them.
• 14:25
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 14:25
  Lovely little details. It's not over yet.
• 14:28
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like the end.
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  Roaster hands. Firstly, when he's walking
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  through the party goes looking for Takagi, he's reciting.
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  Basically, Takagi's whole life story shows he's a professional,
• 14:37
  he's done his research and then when he shoots Takagi, he's
• 14:39
  clearly a sociopath and will happily kill a father of five to
• 14:43
  get what he wants. So a really good setup.
• 14:45
  Yeah, it is again as well. When Takagi tried to get
• 14:47
  everyone's attention, he's got ladies and gentlemen.
• 14:50
  Ladies and gentlemen. It's exactly how Hans gets their
• 14:52
  attention. It's brilliant.
• 14:54
  On the death of Takagi, producer Joel Silva said I need to see
• 14:57
  his brains leaving his head. I need to give something to the
• 15:00
  MPA to cut because I want to get other stuff passed.
• 15:04
  So as a result, 4 frames from Takagi's head exploding were
• 15:07
  removed to avoid an X-ray. Right, just 4 frames and.
• 15:10
  Everything else just slipped under the fence and.
• 15:11
  Yeah, I mean, we see enough that shot, the blood spluttering on
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  the door. Yeah, it's great.
• 15:15
  Shocking moment. Merry Christmas.
• 15:18
  The atrium area where the hostages are held throughout the
• 15:21
  film has a big water feature. It was based on a house called
• 15:24
  Falling Water, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1935.
• 15:28
  It was the most expensive set in the production.
• 15:30
  Also, the model Bridge was seen in Takagi's office as an
• 15:32
  unrealized Frank Lloyd Wright design from 1953.
• 15:35
  The production designer Jack de Govia was a big fan and had the
• 15:38
  model sent to Frank Lloyd Wright after production wrapped and
• 15:41
  then Simon Garfunkel wrote a song about.
• 15:44
  So long. Have you seen falling water?
• 15:48
  No, no. It's in Pennsylvania and it's
• 15:50
  unbelievable. It also inspired the Van Damme
• 15:53
  house at the end of North by Northwest.
• 15:55
  Oh, OK. Yeah.
• 15:56
  All right. I thought you meant Jean-Claude
• 15:57
  Van Damme. There was that before?
• 15:59
  You meant JCBD? There, the other Van Damme.
• 16:03
  Yeah. The best one, yeah.
• 16:07
  So that's the open to Die Hard Cork arguments Beethoven and
• 16:11
  murder Pretty much what messed up to right now and imagine.
• 16:14
  Exactly, And we've only just started.
• 16:19
  Once the Kogi is bumped off, all hell breaks loose.
• 16:22
  McLean heads for the safety of the upper floors of the Nakatomi
• 16:24
  with Hans crew in pursuit. In the action scenes that
• 16:27
  follow, McLean kills Tony rescue, starting a movie long
• 16:31
  Vendetta with his brother Carl and after unsuccessfully
• 16:34
  ordering a pizza, finds himself in a shootout with more Germans
• 16:37
  led by Carl. Yeah, brilliant.
• 16:39
  They are rules for policeman Westy.
• 16:41
  There are. Not that you follow them.
• 16:45
  You won't hurt me. There are rules for policemen.
• 16:50
  Yeah. I love this sequence when Tony
• 16:52
  comes back and you've got McLean versus Tony.
• 16:55
  And I think it's one of the great setups because you realize
• 16:58
  Mclean's not that hard. Is he?
• 16:59
  He's just a maniac. Yeah.
• 17:02
  He's pretty much beaten here. He hasn't got much of A thought
• 17:05
  process apart from I'm going to start this circular saw that's
• 17:08
  going to do it. And it's a great reveal when he
• 17:10
  comes around the side of the wooden.
• 17:11
  Mclean's not there. This all goes off.
• 17:12
  And then he's there and it's like, right?
• 17:14
  OK, that's about as intelligent as he gets throughout the whole
• 17:16
  film, really. But it's just a mental when he
• 17:20
  just, he's got the gun to him and he just thinks this guy's
• 17:23
  obviously about 3 foot taller than him.
• 17:25
  I'll have a go, he's got a gun. I'll have a go and I'll just
• 17:28
  elbow. And he's got him.
• 17:29
  Like Tony's slamming them into walls.
• 17:31
  This is a lucky, lucky escape. Very much.
• 17:34
  Just falls down the stairs, snaps his neck.
• 17:36
  I think the thing that really sells this sequence is the
• 17:38
  aftermath and what he does with the body and how he kind of
• 17:40
  twists that around and takes the piss a little bit with the you
• 17:43
  know, now I have a machine gun written on that.
• 17:44
  It's just that's a great touch because he has got something
• 17:47
  else now. But the audience is still a
• 17:49
  little bit on the back foot because you're like, I'm not
• 17:51
  convinced that this guy can look after himself.
• 17:53
  To be fair. These guys are strong and and
• 17:55
  that's what I love about this sequence because it doesn't
• 17:57
  reassure the audience. It kind of puts you on the back
• 17:59
  foot thinking he's going to fumble his way through this.
• 18:02
  I'm really worried and that's why I love it.
• 18:03
  Yeah, I don't quite understand Tony's outfit here.
• 18:08
  Why is he in like a Gray, two piece, Gray sweat, two piece,
• 18:12
  lovely. And everybody else is like in
• 18:14
  European fashion. Yeah, it's like reminds me of
• 18:16
  Like the Sea and a catalogue from the late 80s.
• 18:19
  He's like an action figure. Yeah, Die Hard based on a novel,
• 18:25
  and we'll talk about that. But in that novel, the main
• 18:27
  antagonist isn't called Hans Gruber.
• 18:29
  He's called Little Tony the Red, right.
• 18:31
  They changed it for the film, but that's why Tony is called
• 18:34
  Tony after that character. And this, after the setting of
• 18:37
  McLean and Holly, it's another great character touched at the
• 18:40
  make Tony Karl's brother, which creates this whole dynamic
• 18:42
  between McLean and Karl for the rest of the film.
• 18:45
  Also, Tony, does anyone else think he looks like a serial
• 18:48
  killer? Oh yeah, specifically Dharma.
• 18:50
  Jeffrey Dahmer. Yeah, he looks like Dharma.
• 18:52
  He. Looks just like.
• 18:54
  He's played by a guy called Andreas Wisniewski.
• 18:56
  He was a real German, but I reckon that they've definitely
• 18:59
  told him to rumble the accent for the film.
• 19:01
  I won't hurt you, my friend. Promise.
• 19:04
  The fire has been called off. That's quite seductive, that's.
• 19:09
  Beautiful. Again after this, I like the
• 19:11
  moment where obviously Carl has got a family vendetta to settle
• 19:15
  and he busts out the heavy duty artillery, the roof.
• 19:19
  But still Karl remains calm and measured in his approach.
• 19:22
  He's not letting his emotions get the better of him, which he
• 19:24
  could quite easily. His brother's dead and he's on
• 19:27
  the job with him. They're obviously close.
• 19:29
  That wide shot of Powell looking at the Nakatomi is something
• 19:32
  else. You can see the gun at the top
• 19:34
  of the building. Oh yeah, it's great, but the
• 19:37
  scene itself, it's just so magnificently staged.
• 19:39
  McLean gets some humour in there, You're quote at the
• 19:42
  start. West.
• 19:42
  Yeah, but it's not done in a cheesy one line away.
• 19:45
  He's obviously exasperated and furious.
• 19:47
  Makes it funny. It does make it funny, yeah, and
• 19:50
  he's outgunned and outnumbered. But this builds on the
• 19:53
  character's resourcefulness as well, that he can get himself
• 19:55
  out of this really tight spot because he's got his kind of cop
• 19:59
  St. smarts to fall back on. And you mentioned about Frank
• 20:03
  Lloyd Wright, I'm just crazy about the production design all
• 20:06
  over the film. But here in particular that fan
• 20:09
  that McLean inches through before shots are fired.
• 20:12
  And the intricacies of the interior of the building, the
• 20:14
  vents and the elevator shafts. You really feel like you like
• 20:17
  you're in there and you can feel the cluster of it or.
• 20:20
  Feel how cold it is? Great.
• 20:21
  Yeah. You can, yeah.
• 20:23
  Yeah, once the action starts with the death of Tony, the film
• 20:26
  doesn't let up. Every action sequence seems to
• 20:28
  ramp it up from the last one, and this one definitely does
• 20:31
  that. There's a great shot where the
• 20:33
  camera pans across the top of the roof from a couple of the
• 20:35
  Germans to McLean. Like exchanging fire past McLean
• 20:38
  to call walking across the top of the roof.
• 20:40
  Yeah, I mean, it's not exactly Alfonso Cuaron, but surely the
• 20:43
  longest shot in the film. It's at least 8 seconds.
• 20:46
  Yeah, and at the time, quite original for Hollywood film.
• 20:49
  Yeah, very much. And the actions more vary.
• 20:51
  This time there's the intense action of the shootout and then
• 20:53
  it's tension as Mclean's trying to escape.
• 20:56
  There's so many moments in the film where the bad guys are
• 20:58
  within like a whisker of getting McLean, and the part where he's
• 21:01
  hiding in the vent and cause using his gun to pull the casing
• 21:04
  is maybe my favorite of the lot. Really inventor.
• 21:06
  That's great and really good. Instead of making a custom event
• 21:10
  to fit Bruce Willis, they brought one in and Willis
• 21:12
  struggled to get through it quickly, meaning they didn't
• 21:15
  have enough dialogue to fill up the scene.
• 21:17
  Joel Silva called the writer Dave and Eight 2000 at Panic at
• 21:20
  like 2:00 in the morning demanded he get on the set to
• 21:22
  write more dialogue. The fitted Willis with an
• 21:24
  earpiece. So does I could feed him lines
• 21:26
  and that's where come out to the course.
• 21:28
  We'll get together, have a few laughs.
• 21:30
  That's where that line came from.
• 21:32
  Yeah. What a line.
• 21:33
  There's a great line. I know that, the famous lineman
• 21:35
  McLean says. Now I know what ATV did not.
• 21:37
  Feels like. That was improvised by Willis.
• 21:39
  Yeah, great. To be fair, if I've been dragged
• 21:41
  out a better 2:00 AM to write some dialogue and Willis started
• 21:44
  improvising, I'd be furious. I'd have to come up with that
• 21:48
  coastline. You have to.
• 21:50
  And that is the beginning of Die Hard.
• 21:52
  Some huge action from the get go and it's only going to get
• 21:55
  bigger, louder and more intense from here.
• 21:58
  Absolutely. Oh yeah, kiss your fucking
• 22:00
  Dalmatian, the director. The director of Die Hard was
• 22:08
  John Mctiennan. He directed just two features
• 22:11
  before Die Hard, the universally panned horror Nomads, in 1986.
• 22:15
  And there's still a much loved action film Predator in 1987.
• 22:19
  Was that PS Brosnan, a Nomad? It was.
• 22:21
  It is, yeah. Oh yeah, I remember that one.
• 22:23
  Making a name for himself at the time, then Luke.
• 22:25
  Yes indeed. So what do you think of GMC CS
• 22:28
  Work on Die Hard? Back-to-back action classics,
• 22:30
  Yeah. For me, Mctenan is the the
• 22:33
  master of taking multiple scenes, breaking them apart, and
• 22:36
  then piercing them back together by cross cutting the action.
• 22:39
  Right. He does it in The Hunter at
• 22:41
  October as well, yes? And here he does it.
• 22:43
  When Powell first arrives at Nakatomi Cowl, snooping around
• 22:47
  in the seemingly safe surroundings of the lobby,
• 22:49
  unaware of the dangers around the corner.
• 22:52
  And this is Cross Cup with the front, it goes on upstairs,
• 22:54
  Mclean's trying to smash the window, the terrorists are
• 22:56
  mobilizing. And when it cuts back down to
• 22:58
  Powell, the music stops and it really heightens the tension.
• 23:02
  Because we as an audience know so much more than him, and it's
• 23:06
  moments of tension heaped on top of each other.
• 23:09
  And near the end. This is the Mctean and Piste
• 23:12
  resistance. You've got the fight with Karl
• 23:15
  on top of hands, finding out that Holly is John's wife on top
• 23:18
  of the helicopters flying in jeopardy on top of jeopardy.
• 23:22
  But it ties in thematically as well because the FBI are double
• 23:25
  crossing hands, who in turn is double crossing them.
• 23:28
  It's a double, double cross, yeah, which again, it's hugely
• 23:31
  adds to the dramatic tension. Who's going to win here?
• 23:34
  And it all sounds so complicated, but but Mateenan
• 23:37
  makes it as easy as π to understand.
• 23:40
  He does. Somehow he drops McLean in the
• 23:41
  middle of all that as well, and that's a jump off the roof.
• 23:46
  I mean, it's incredible stuff from maintaining.
• 23:49
  Yeah, it seems that like on a personal level, John Mctiernan
• 23:51
  wasn't hugely popular on the set, Bonnie Badelia said.
• 23:54
  I've never seen John smile. Stephenita Souza called him Dora
• 23:58
  and regional Val Johnson said he'd crack his face if he
• 24:01
  smiled. So a grumpy sword.
• 24:06
  But judging him on the end products.
• 24:07
  Yeah, it's hard to be critical. John Mctiernan, Yeah, he has a
• 24:10
  reputation of being one of the great directors of action films
• 24:13
  like Predator and The Hunt for Reddit.
• 24:14
  Toba back that up, but Die Hard is his masterpiece, I think.
• 24:17
  Yeah, I'll talk a bit about the cinematography when we get to
• 24:20
  Yander Bond later, but with Yenan brings more than just the
• 24:22
  visuals. The whole film just about is set
• 24:25
  in the neck. I told me.
• 24:26
  And I think the way we see on the next location, always clear
• 24:28
  without getting bogged down and spelling it out, is really
• 24:31
  impressive. Yeah.
• 24:32
  You always have a sense where McLean is in the building.
• 24:34
  Maybe not specifically, but at least in relation to the bad
• 24:37
  guys. Yeah.
• 24:38
  When McLean first arrived at the, Naka told me he uses that
• 24:40
  light touch electronic system to find Holly.
• 24:42
  So we'll see everybody out of the building early on, which is
• 24:44
  really clever. Yeah.
• 24:46
  And also Mcclean's handling of the tone I think is exceptional.
• 24:50
  There's quite a lot of humor in the film, but it never
• 24:52
  undermines the narrative. The most impressive bit to me is
• 24:55
  during the rooftop shootout we talked about as Mclean's like
• 24:58
  fighting for his life. We could to the 711 where we see
• 25:00
  Sergeant Paul for the first time getting the piss ripped out of
• 25:03
  him by that cashier for buying loads of Twinkies.
• 25:05
  Yeah, it's a comedy moment. And then it cuts back to the
• 25:09
  shootout and the total switches are like, seamless.
• 25:12
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's not jarring at all.
• 25:14
  Not at all. Superb action filmmaking,
• 25:16
  excellent handling of tone, and he might have been a bit of a
• 25:19
  Mardi Arse, but that's ultimately down to John Mccie
• 25:21
  and then his best film for me. Yeah, Mardi Arse.
• 25:26
  Very British insult there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 25:28
  I think Mctean approached this as the opposite filmed Predator.
• 25:32
  I think he saw all that machismo on display, all of how easy it
• 25:37
  was to throw them boys into an action sequence.
• 25:39
  And then I think he's just making that thing.
• 25:41
  And what would it be like if there was just a cop from New
• 25:43
  York who was off the streets who was put in a situation like this
• 25:47
  and put them in the situations where he has to think his way
• 25:50
  out instead of kind of fighting his way out?
• 25:52
  There's no fat on this film whatsoever.
• 25:54
  It absolutely zips along and every character seems to have
• 25:58
  the real point, and he's got a great use of that.
• 26:01
  Every man, if that I could be that guy that I'd love to be.
• 26:05
  Like, I'm an inch away from being McLean.
• 26:08
  I'm about 3 miles away from being Schwarzenegger, but I'm
• 26:10
  pretty close. I've got to face, Do you know
• 26:13
  what I mean? I can take my shoes off.
• 26:15
  You smoke? Yeah, he's a very, very bad for
• 26:18
  you. But you've got all of these
• 26:19
  things. And for me, he's a real, real
• 26:21
  master of static action and old school shots.
• 26:24
  The way he uses a close up is always seamless and normal.
• 26:27
  Like some directors even Finch it.
• 26:29
  When he goes for a close up, he's like close up everyone
• 26:32
  Mctain and doesn't. You don't even know that He just
• 26:34
  goes into a close up and it's just so fleeting and it just
• 26:36
  it's so smooth and the transitions between these shots
• 26:39
  are amazing. Low angles, tracking shots,
• 26:42
  smoothness, everything. Just this use of classic,
• 26:45
  classic visual storytelling and actually say if a really, really
• 26:49
  good film, you should be able to turn the sound off and know
• 26:50
  what's going on. That's diehard.
• 26:52
  Very nice. The diehard producers were Joel
• 26:55
  Silva and Lawrence Gordon, and when they came onto the film,
• 26:57
  the first person they approached a direct wasn't John Mctiernan.
• 27:00
  It was Paul Verhoeven for the success of RoboCop.
• 27:04
  Bloodbath, yeah. Yeah, I understand.
• 27:07
  Yeah, but even said no. But imagine that.
• 27:09
  That would have been insane. No logic, no.
• 27:11
  Logic no. It was a social commentary.
• 27:13
  Yeah, yeah, McLean is Jesus allegory.
• 27:16
  Obviously standing on nails instead of glass, wouldn't it?
• 27:23
  Yeah, Joel Silva just worked with Mctenan on Predator.
• 27:26
  Obviously he liked what he saw, so after Verhoeven he approached
• 27:29
  him about Die Hard. But Mctenan declined because he
• 27:32
  wanted some time off. He was shattered after Predator.
• 27:35
  Obviously tired of pumping iron with Arnie and the boys, no.
• 27:38
  Doubt. And Mctenan also didn't love the
• 27:41
  Die Hard script. He called it a terrorist movie,
• 27:43
  which is the film that he ended up making as well, to be glad
• 27:46
  he's a terrorist film. Yeah, well, Silva wouldn't take
• 27:50
  no for an answer, obviously, so he kept on sending me TN in the
• 27:54
  script. After he'd said no three times,
• 27:56
  he finally said, OK, I could do it, but we need to change the
• 28:00
  terrorists to rob us. He reasoned the terrorists made
• 28:03
  people sad and said why would someone hire a babysitter and
• 28:06
  spend 25 bucks to say something that makes them feel like shit?
• 28:09
  I. Don't know.
• 28:09
  That's what I do on a regular basis.
• 28:13
  Questions specifically for you. I see that one it.
• 28:15
  Is yeah, tell them I'll drop my e-mail.
• 28:19
  Something else that interested Mctenan was that he said he saw
• 28:22
  the film as having parallels with The Midsummer Night's
• 28:24
  Dream. I mean, obviously.
• 28:26
  I mean, come on, we're natural. We're going to get into this.
• 28:29
  A festival night where everyone is involved.
• 28:32
  The Princess become asses, the FBI and police are made to look
• 28:34
  stupid. The asses become Princess McLean
• 28:37
  and Powell save the day, then the world goes back to normal
• 28:39
  the next day. Tina and said he didn't mention
• 28:42
  Shakespeare. Joel Silva in case he got fired.
• 28:44
  Imagine that Joel bit of Bill Shakespeare here.
• 28:47
  Fuck off. Shakespeare in this Get out, get
• 28:50
  out. Fuck off.
• 28:51
  Shakespeare and Silva together at last.
• 28:53
  Yeah, they should have called it Die Bod in that case.
• 28:59
  Missed opportunity? Very good.
• 29:04
  The film was mostly filmed in and around the Fox Plaza
• 29:07
  building in LA Century City. Yeah, which stood in as the
• 29:10
  Nakatomi Fox Plaza was still being built.
• 29:13
  So production took up the bottom and the top few floors of the
• 29:16
  building. The majority of the remaining
• 29:18
  floors were full of Fox lawyers Mctain and said that all the
• 29:21
  suits would complain if production was too loud before
• 29:24
  5:00 PM. And at one point a law firm
• 29:26
  actually threatened legal action if they didn't stop the noise.
• 29:29
  And on the flip side of that, production after 5:00 PM was
• 29:32
  complained about by the neighbours rocking a hard place.
• 29:35
  Is that why they blew up the bottom floors?
• 29:39
  Yeah, they were there at the time.
• 29:40
  Bye. And the fallouts carried on
• 29:44
  throughout filming. They were shooting the final
• 29:46
  scene where there's loads of paper and debris everywhere over
• 29:49
  one weekend, and Silver went and spoke to the building
• 29:51
  supervisors and asked them to make sure the lights were all
• 29:53
  turned off on the Friday so the buildings were all in darkness
• 29:56
  for the shoot. And I heard Richard Edlund, the
• 29:58
  visual effects producer, tell the story, and he said the
• 30:01
  building supervisors intentionally left the lights on
• 30:03
  as a final fuck you to Joel Silva.
• 30:06
  Wow. What I said about.
• 30:07
  It you cannot see Silva going over and being diplomatic about
• 30:11
  the old can you? He's going to be a Dick.
• 30:13
  You make sure them fucking lights are off.
• 30:15
  I fucking keep them on there. Exactly.
• 30:17
  For his work on Die Hard, John Mcchiannon received no major
• 30:20
  award recognition. No surprise there, really.
• 30:23
  But in following this up with The Hunt for Red October in 1990
• 30:26
  and Die with a vengeance in 1995, his legacy as a great
• 30:30
  action filmmaker was sealed. Absolutely.
• 30:32
  I think, yeah. I would say so, certainly.
• 30:34
  In the middle of all that he did last Action hero as well.
• 30:37
  Yeah, medicine man. Medicine.
• 30:39
  Man, so not necessarily the. Cast.
• 30:48
  John Mcshearlan was relatively inexperienced as a filmmaker
• 30:51
  when he got the Die Hard gig, and the same is definitely true
• 30:54
  of his main cast. We're going to be talking about
• 30:57
  Alan Rickman as antagonist of the Peace Hands Gruba, as well
• 31:00
  as key supporting turns from Bonnie Bedelia as Holly Gennaro
• 31:03
  McLean and regional Val Johnson, the Sergeant Al Powell.
• 31:06
  But we're starting with the main man, yeah?
• 31:09
  Yes indeed. So Bruce Willis plays John Roy
• 31:12
  McLean, a New York cop called When the Christmas Eve
• 31:15
  Shenanigans and the Nakatomi. We're with McLean for the
• 31:18
  majority of the film as he works to take down Hans.
• 31:20
  Crew forms a bond with Powell and ultimately reconciled with
• 31:24
  his estranged wife Holly from one fly in the ointment, the
• 31:28
  monkey in the wrench, the Pain in the ass to another.
• 31:32
  Wesley, how was McLean and Bruce Willis as?
• 31:36
  If anyone's surprised, you're going to say it my name.
• 31:38
  After that, I think he's just wonderful.
• 31:40
  He's just wonderful, so accessible as a character, so
• 31:43
  well played, and he's not scared to make it funny, to make it
• 31:47
  vulnerable. And he has some real comedy
• 31:50
  chops in this that I think kind of fly under the radar a little
• 31:52
  bit because it's just so intense as you're watching it.
• 31:56
  But it's when you remember it later on and you go, wow, that
• 31:58
  character was really lovable. But all of the comedy elements
• 32:01
  come at these times of peril. One bit that I really, really
• 32:04
  love is when the SWAT team are there and they get their asses
• 32:07
  kicked and he just, he's got the explosives and he puts a
• 32:10
  computer monitor on top of it and he's just like take this
• 32:13
  under advisement, dig. We just under his breath to
• 32:16
  himself, like reinforcing himself.
• 32:19
  It almost feels like he's just putting these little moments in
• 32:21
  just to reinforce the character and just make them like this
• 32:24
  normal guy and it just it comes with this real sense of like
• 32:28
  he's scared and he masks that with comedy.
• 32:30
  I think it's really, really good and a really brave turn from
• 32:33
  Willis at this point in 88 to make an action hero who's not
• 32:36
  massively macho but is also really funny.
• 32:40
  Yeah, definitely. I mean, he isn't every man cop,
• 32:42
  isn't he who was meant to be relatable to the audience, which
• 32:45
  is definitely for the best. Although we did unfortunately
• 32:47
  mean that we're Tianan and Silva couldn't get Arnold back in
• 32:49
  there after Predator. He wouldn't get through the air
• 32:52
  duct, yeah. No, he wouldn't.
• 32:55
  You sound more German than the terrorists you would.
• 32:57
  Now I know what a buffet feels like.
• 33:01
  And I mean considering Bruce Willis Experience before this,
• 33:04
  which was a hit TV show and a flop ROM com called Blind Date,
• 33:07
  I think he's superb as McLean. Yeah, he's unreal.
• 33:11
  Leading an action film, it's not just about being able to act,
• 33:13
  It's just as much about how good you look performing the action.
• 33:16
  There's a certain like athleticism required, and Bruce
• 33:19
  Willis delivers on all of it. Like when he's running through
• 33:21
  the glass screaming, or when he jumps off the building with the
• 33:24
  holes around his waist. Or the fight with Carl later on.
• 33:26
  In lesser hands, I think McLean could have been a bit on the
• 33:29
  nose. He's running around in a vest
• 33:31
  with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and no shoes on.
• 33:33
  It's ridiculous, but Willis sells it and I buy all of it.
• 33:37
  He does. He looks great in the action
• 33:39
  scenes, he looks good smoking, he can pull off a vest and he
• 33:42
  nails the one liners. And when the dramatic moments do
• 33:45
  come, he's got the chops. Yeah, one of the very best
• 33:48
  leading man performances in an action film ever for me.
• 33:51
  When he's putting that horse on, he's like, Jesus Christ, John,
• 33:53
  what the fuck are you doing? That's great.
• 33:56
  Please don't let me die. How did you get into this?
• 33:59
  Yeah, how? Did you get to this shit?
• 34:01
  Yeah, Fantastic. Yeah, I mean, the set up for the
• 34:04
  character is is just wonderful. In 10 seconds of no dialogue
• 34:08
  when he's on that plane, you get that he's a married man on
• 34:10
  account of his wedding ring and also how tense he is on that
• 34:13
  flight with him grabbing the armrest.
• 34:15
  So there's vulnerability on a few levels.
• 34:17
  Immediately. Then you've got that scene that
• 34:20
  he has with Powell in the bathroom, and this vulnerability
• 34:23
  that he shows just wasn't a thing in the action genre, I
• 34:26
  mean. You love this scene, don't?
• 34:27
  You've mentioned it a couple of times.
• 34:28
  I love this Schwarzenegger in Commando.
• 34:31
  His daughter's life is on the line.
• 34:33
  Similar situation. None of the depth of emotion,
• 34:37
  nothing like that. He's just doling out one line.
• 34:39
  There's like there's no tomorrow.
• 34:42
  But you totally buy it from Willis because he's been the
• 34:44
  reluctant hero from the start. He got invited to the Christmas
• 34:47
  party by mistake. Who knew?
• 34:48
  It's amazing. And he's also not cut out of
• 34:51
  stone like the usual action star.
• 34:53
  He's in good nick, but a little soft around the edges, totally
• 34:57
  appeals to the masses who could never dream of looking like Sly
• 35:00
  or Arnie. And the fact that he does get
• 35:02
  hurt, his feet are cut to ribbons, which is why he reckons
• 35:05
  that he's not going to make it out of there alive, which is why
• 35:07
  he's talking to Powell for audiences.
• 35:10
  We're able to put ourselves in that situation.
• 35:11
  You know, what will we do? I mean, you know, I probably
• 35:15
  pants and cable. Yeah, I've been shot by Tony
• 35:18
  easily. Yeah, I mean, Bruce Willis was a
• 35:24
  big star at the time of Die Hard, but not from films he'd
• 35:27
  starred in the huge USTV hit Moonlighting.
• 35:30
  Yeah, alongside Sybil Shepard since 1985 S There were other
• 35:34
  way more experienced movie actors up for the part of McLean
• 35:37
  before Willis came along. Have you heard any of those
• 35:40
  names? I mean, it'll be definitely John
• 35:43
  Travolta, Nick Cage, Chevy Chase.
• 35:45
  All of these guys, he's. Always in there.
• 35:47
  He's. Always in there.
• 35:50
  Well, apparently when Jeb Stewart penned the first draft
• 35:53
  of the film, the person he had in mind to play McLean was
• 35:55
  Richard Gere. Well, so yeah, hide your
• 35:58
  hamsters. Then when Joe Silva came in, he
• 36:01
  wanted a big name, obviously. Clint Eastwood was apparently
• 36:05
  approached but said that he didn't get the humor and Paul
• 36:08
  Newman was apparently asked, but it made a decision not to carry
• 36:11
  guns in films anymore. Yeah, the town inferno's a bit
• 36:14
  too close for Newman as well. Yeah, it's true.
• 36:16
  Just got some rod dressing in there.
• 36:17
  You'd be all over that. Yeah, of course you would.
• 36:20
  And everyone. My names were Harrison Ford,
• 36:22
  Burt Reynolds, James Carn and apparently Al Pacino, which
• 36:27
  would have been ridiculous, amazing and.
• 36:29
  If Al Pacino. You would have been amazing and.
• 36:37
  Bruce Willis later said All of those guys would have been
• 36:39
  great. John Mcleans.
• 36:41
  As it turns out, if you think about John McLean now, you can't
• 36:43
  imagine anyone doing it but me. So please.
• 36:48
  He's right. He's dead, right?
• 36:49
  That's right. And the film itself, it's based
• 36:51
  on a novel called Nothing Lasts Forever, which is by Roderick
• 36:54
  Thorpe. It was a sequel to another
• 36:56
  Thorpe novel called The Detective, which had already
• 36:59
  been adapted for the silver screen in 1968 with Sinatra in
• 37:02
  the lead. And because of this, when 20th
• 37:05
  Century Fox decided to adapt Nothing Lasts Forever, They were
• 37:08
  contractually obliged to offer the part of John McLean to Frank
• 37:11
  Sinatra before anybody else. Wow.
• 37:13
  I mean ludicrous. Ludicrous.
• 37:15
  Zubi doobie Doo, motherfucker. You're selling it there to be
• 37:21
  fair, I. Know.
• 37:22
  Yeah. I mean Sanat, who's already in
• 37:24
  his 70s at the time, and he turned it down, thankfully, he
• 37:27
  said. I'm too old and too rich.
• 37:30
  I mean too old. Shulie is the most important
• 37:32
  thing. Therefore, don't care how rich
• 37:34
  you are, you're just not equipped for the for the role.
• 37:37
  Yeah, exactly. Sammy Davis, junior as Powell.
• 37:39
  That would have been good as well, that.
• 37:41
  Would have been great. And Steve Nader.
• 37:44
  So as I said, thank God Sonora passed or the chasers around the
• 37:47
  building would have been on mobility scooters.
• 37:51
  Imagine his toenails 70. Howard Hughes.
• 37:56
  Disgusting. Joel Silva was on a flight and
• 38:00
  found himself sitting with an agent called Arnold Rifkin.
• 38:03
  Rifka knew Silva was having trouble casting the lead on Die
• 38:06
  Hard, so put forward his own client, who happened to be Bruce
• 38:08
  Willis. He convinced Silver he was the
• 38:10
  right man for the part, but there were conflicts with the
• 38:13
  moonlighting schedule, so Willis couldn't do it.
• 38:15
  Then Sybil Shepherd fell pregnant, meaning a window
• 38:18
  opened up for Willis to take the part.
• 38:20
  He said. If I had got the Sybil Shepherd
• 38:22
  pregnant myself, I couldn't have planned it better at Basin.
• 38:26
  That's a respectful thing to say about your Co star, isn't it?
• 38:28
  Isn't it? I don't think they got that.
• 38:32
  Yeah, so with us was paid $5,000,000 to play McLean, which
• 38:36
  was a huge amount for ATV star with one film under his belt.
• 38:39
  Yeah. It caused quite a storm with
• 38:41
  Hollywood Studios and I saw an interview with Alan Lard Junior,
• 38:44
  the head of MGM at the time, who said what if Tom Selleck starts
• 38:47
  demanding $6 million? What from Selleck?
• 38:51
  Tell him no. He's already lost Indiana Jones.
• 38:54
  Give the guy a break. On set, Mctennan had a problem
• 38:58
  or two with Willis. When blocking scenes.
• 39:01
  Willis would spoil the shot by saying I don't think John would
• 39:04
  stand here. He'd stand over there and this
• 39:06
  continue for a for a while until Joel Silver confronted Willis
• 39:09
  and found out that he was concerned about his thin and
• 39:11
  hair, right? The set was so well lit that he
• 39:15
  was concerned that the light would shine through his hair and
• 39:17
  highlight his boldness. I mean, it wouldn't be long
• 39:20
  before we got the signature Bald Willis look, would it?
• 39:22
  No, no. He waited for the full shave.
• 39:24
  Should he use that? 5 million?
• 39:25
  Got a hair transplant? Like Wayne Rooney?
• 39:26
  Well, maybe not Like Wayne Rooney.
• 39:28
  No, maybe not, Rooney. I gave it back up.
• 39:31
  I didn't expect a. Movie to come up on a die hard
• 39:34
  podcast. Also Marilyn Vance, one of the
• 39:37
  production designers. She said there were 17 different
• 39:40
  versions of Mclean's vest in like varying degrees of
• 39:43
  distress, which I think probably explains why it seems to change
• 39:46
  from white to green from one scene to the next.
• 39:48
  I mean, it's quite a jump for it to be 5th, like 17 gradients,
• 39:52
  it's quite a jump. To finish off on Bruce, with us
• 39:57
  is John McLean. We have our first PF Young
• 39:58
  question. So one of the benefits of
• 40:01
  signing there is an ATRM patron on Patreon is that we'll answer
• 40:04
  your questions on the show. We have the first of those
• 40:06
  questions now and it comes from Jacob Perry.
• 40:10
  Season's Greetings, Jacob. Hello, Jacob.
• 40:13
  Hi, Jacob. So Jacob was.
• 40:15
  Asking again Battle of the Max, Part 2 McCready versus McLean
• 40:20
  Bare Knuckle. No flamethrowers, no machine
• 40:22
  guns. Who wins?
• 40:24
  Oh, the Mack Daddy. So yeah, so on our one field of
• 40:27
  the Cookie was Nest episode Jacob as he would win in the
• 40:29
  scrap RJ Mccreedy from the thing RP Mcmurphy from Cookie was
• 40:33
  Nest. The winner then was Mccreedy.
• 40:35
  How about Mccreedy versus McClain or Wesley?
• 40:38
  Oh, I mean, this is a bit of a better parent, isn't it?
• 40:41
  To be fair. 1. Of them is not a complete
• 40:44
  fucking psychopath. I don't know.
• 40:47
  I think this is a very, very even parent for me.
• 40:49
  But I think the fact that McClain refuses to have a drink,
• 40:52
  he's a bit more on the level. I don't know.
• 40:55
  It's a it's a tough one because they're both really good with
• 40:58
  weapons, but hand to hand they're both pretty shit.
• 41:02
  So I would, I would actually put me money on McLean because I
• 41:04
  think he's just got a little bit more drive and a little bit more
• 41:07
  clarity. But ultimately I think they were
• 41:08
  both just beat the shit out of each other.
• 41:10
  Then just sit there and see what happens.
• 41:12
  Yeah, I think if it were, with all the tools at their disposal
• 41:15
  in their respective films, it would be quite an even matching.
• 41:19
  But like Jacob says, if it's bare knuckle, skin on skin
• 41:23
  stripped to the waist, to the death, it's got to be McLean.
• 41:27
  For me, no contest. When he gets backed into a
• 41:29
  corner, he strikes with rapid ferocity like we see with Carl.
• 41:33
  I mean Mccreedy's helicopter pilot, Mclean's a copper without
• 41:37
  the dynamite in the hat. Mccreedy would have nothing
• 41:40
  against Mclean's personal arsenal.
• 41:42
  Just pulled out a Peaky edition of wire coat hanger.
• 41:45
  Not going to. Happen.
• 41:47
  Yeah, he's a Street Fighter McLean, isn't he?
• 41:49
  Yeah, he is no award recognition for Bruce Willis on Die Hard.
• 41:53
  It catapulted his career into the stratosphere, though, making
• 41:56
  him one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.
• 41:58
  And he returned as John McLean a further four times in Die Hard
• 42:01
  Films. By the time of the final one, A
• 42:03
  Good Day to Die Hard Willis was making you reported $25 million.
• 42:08
  Oh my God. So a great career for Bruce
• 42:10
  Willis and this the original Die Hard still stands right up there
• 42:14
  among his best work. Oh, absolutely.
• 42:16
  For me, yeah. The best.
• 42:19
  The antagonist and Mclean's protagonist is Hans Gruber,
• 42:22
  played by Alan Rickman and East German terrorist turned thief.
• 42:26
  Gruber masterminds the takeover of the Nakatomi and attempts to
• 42:29
  steal $640 million in bearer bonds before falling to his
• 42:33
  death from the 30th floor of the building in the climax.
• 42:36
  Yeah, the benefits of a classical education.
• 42:40
  Look how it happens. And Alan Rickman.
• 42:43
  Yeah, I mean Rickman. He just swooped onto the big
• 42:46
  screen and changed the game here.
• 42:49
  I mean that shot of hands emerging from the truck with his
• 42:52
  Euro trash crew. Behind was in the middle.
• 42:54
  Brilliant. Wonderful.
• 42:56
  Hands in pockets. Hands in hands.
• 42:58
  Hands. Hands in.
• 43:00
  Pockets. Listen, I'm going to mention
• 43:01
  Commando again, but this ain't no Bennett from Commando.
• 43:04
  No bodies, no chainmail, no Tash when he blows to Khaki.
• 43:07
  Where we now know who we're dealing with.
• 43:09
  Ruthless, Emotionless, 100% focused on the job at hand and
• 43:13
  nothing will get in the way of that.
• 43:15
  No. But then there are layers to
• 43:17
  hands. He doesn't just plug away at
• 43:18
  people for no reason. He even admits his feelings to
• 43:21
  Holly about the use of the bathroom for the hostages.
• 43:24
  And in that moment, he immediately sees that Holly is
• 43:27
  someone to keep an eye on because she's tough and she's
• 43:29
  whip smart and he's such a cool customer.
• 43:31
  He's anticipated the involvement of the police and the FBI.
• 43:34
  He needs them as part of his master plan.
• 43:36
  And he's even one or two steps ahead of his Hench men on that
• 43:39
  score. And Rickman was perfect cast.
• 43:42
  And Jackie Birch take a bow, because perfect actor to pull
• 43:46
  off that with his kind of aloof. You Rocha Magnificent.
• 43:51
  Yeah, I saw an interview with Rickman on the Die Hard set
• 43:53
  where we said as far as I'm concerned, I'm not the villain.
• 43:56
  I'm just a guy who made certain choices.
• 43:59
  I mean, fine, but if those choices are to steal and murder
• 44:01
  people, you're definitely the villain.
• 44:06
  I mean this type of bad guy, the kind of suave, well spoken, well
• 44:10
  dressed, sophisticated charmer with a black heart.
• 44:13
  A lot archetypes been around about as long as movies have,
• 44:15
  but it's never been done before or since.
• 44:18
  As well as Hans Gruber. For me, I love him.
• 44:20
  He's a villain. If I was a German thug and Hans
• 44:23
  Gruber told me he had a foolproof plan to steal 600
• 44:25
  million big ones, I'd definitely believe him.
• 44:28
  Great dynamic between him and McLean to the like 2 opposite.
• 44:31
  I'm like the relationship that he has with Holly as well,
• 44:34
  especially the beer at the end when Holly says you're nothing
• 44:36
  but a common thief and Hans scoots right up to her face and
• 44:39
  goes, I am an exceptional thief. He's definitely practicing for
• 44:43
  the Sheriff and Nottingham. For Nottingham, yeah, they're
• 44:45
  gonna say yeah. Yeah, just needs to call him
• 44:47
  Christmas. Yeah, one of the great Hollywood
• 44:51
  films for me. Hans Gruber.
• 44:52
  Yeah, I mean Rickman is just wonderful, wonderfully watchable
• 44:55
  and you kind of root for him after you've seen a fair few
• 44:57
  times. You just really fall in love
• 44:59
  with the guy. You fall in love with the
• 45:00
  character. I love the precision of the
• 45:02
  character. I love how intelligent he is now
• 45:04
  Watch when he goes any kind of owns the place and he's touches
• 45:07
  everything. The more you watch it, the more
• 45:09
  you think, was he just going to get out of this alone?
• 45:13
  Was he going to get everybody on the roof and blow it?
• 45:15
  And he was going to be the only person driving out here.
• 45:17
  You can't trust him with anything.
• 45:19
  It's just really, really, really well done.
• 45:21
  And I know I said earlier when you turn the sound off and you
• 45:24
  can see what's going on, but with his performance, when he
• 45:27
  goes from Bill Clay back to Gruber, he doesn't even have to
• 45:30
  be in focus. And you know, he's a character.
• 45:33
  That's how good his performance is.
• 45:35
  You can't even see it, nevermind hear it.
• 45:37
  And you know that that's fucking Hans Gruber.
• 45:39
  He's back. That's how good the character
• 45:41
  is. And I mean to be 42 year old and
• 45:43
  to breakthrough at that age and to deliver this and not seem
• 45:47
  like you don't, you don't watch it go.
• 45:48
  He's clearly a stage actor now being put in the film.
• 45:50
  You just kind of go where the fuck's this guy been?
• 45:53
  And that for me, I really enjoyed.
• 45:54
  Yeah, and still do. Die Hard was actually Rickman's
• 45:57
  movie debut at 42. It's incredible.
• 46:00
  He made a name for himself on the stage as a Rada graduate and
• 46:03
  was looking to get into movies. Cast and director Jackie Birch
• 46:06
  was aware of Rickman when she cast Red Heat.
• 46:09
  He auditioned for the part of a Russian heavy mean to go from
• 46:12
  that to this. Is a guy you none.
• 46:17
  Birch didn't like him for red heat, but he was the first
• 46:20
  person she thought of when it came to Hans Uber.
• 46:22
  But she had to teach Rickman how to hold a gun.
• 46:25
  Yeah, that's really struggled with.
• 46:27
  He had a limb breast, she said. I love an all fighter.
• 46:29
  Alan Rickman. Yeah, of course, yeah.
• 46:31
  And he said that he was off of the part just two days after
• 46:34
  arriving in LA in 1987 and said I'd never made a film before,
• 46:38
  but I was extremely cheap. A bargain, then?
• 46:41
  Absolute bargain. Yeah, too right?
• 46:43
  You can tell that really adds to the character, the fact that
• 46:45
  he's not comfortable with a gun. Like I say, he's the brains over
• 46:47
  and over the brown. He is, absolutely.
• 46:49
  Rickman was sent the script and later said I read it and said
• 46:53
  what the hell is this? I'm not doing an action movie.
• 46:56
  He was convinced otherwise by his agent and said that the
• 46:58
  width of the script and the progressive storyline and black
• 47:01
  characters won over. Yeah, he didn't have much film
• 47:03
  experience like we said, but Rickman said that he wasn't
• 47:06
  afraid of getting his opinion in there.
• 47:08
  He left a note, apparently on Joel Silva's desk with two
• 47:10
  suggestions. He said Han should wear a suit
• 47:14
  rather than the full terrorist gear, and he said there should
• 47:16
  be a scene where he pretends to be a hostage.
• 47:19
  Nice. Brilliant.
• 47:20
  Silver replied and said. Get the hell out of here.
• 47:22
  You'll wear what you're told. Keep the lights on.
• 47:27
  Then Rickman was given the new script with those changes and.
• 47:29
  Amazing. Oh, brilliant.
• 47:31
  I mean, I don't know what he's talking about saying, what am I
• 47:33
  doing? I'm not going to do this.
• 47:35
  It's an action film. He's happy to be a nobody on a
• 47:38
  crap film like Red. He's yeah, but he doesn't want
• 47:40
  to be the best villain ever. Russian heavy #7 or something?
• 47:46
  Die Hard made Arnold Rickman in Hollywood and he went on to have
• 47:49
  a highly successful career, appearing in the likes of Robin
• 47:51
  Hood, Prince of Thieves and the Harry Potter series for us.
• 47:54
  So his greatest bad guy remains Hans Gruber.
• 47:57
  Oh, 100%. 100%. That's our two leads in the
• 48:02
  film, and there's a memorable roster of secondary characters,
• 48:05
  too. Two of the key ones play a role
• 48:07
  in helping out McLean in his wife Holly, played by Bonnie
• 48:10
  Badelia, and Sergeant Al Powell, played by Reginald Val Johnson.
• 48:14
  Yeah, we should talk about those as well.
• 48:16
  So who are you going for, Wesley?
• 48:18
  I'm going for Bonnie Badelia, who I think is just wonderful in
• 48:21
  this film. Pomona spoken great to me.
• 48:27
  I haven't really seen her in anything else, not that I can
• 48:29
  remember, not the top of my head.
• 48:31
  So she is just Holly McLean through and through from this.
• 48:34
  And the second one, really believable as John's wife,
• 48:37
  really believable as he's high school sweetheart.
• 48:39
  I think they're perfectly cast as a couple.
• 48:41
  You can see them as a couple. I think their chemistry is
• 48:43
  really, really excellent. She's got this wonderful
• 48:46
  emotional side. She's got this real maternal
• 48:49
  side. You can see she's a mother and
• 48:50
  she really cares about people. She's really believable with
• 48:53
  from that emotional side, but she doesn't seem soft and she's
• 48:56
  got this hardness really. Again, it's really refreshing
• 49:00
  for this time. She's not just screaming and
• 49:02
  running about the place and saying John, it's just her
• 49:05
  little quips about him. She's like he's still alive.
• 49:07
  Only John could make somebody that pissed off, you know?
• 49:08
  I mean, just them little quips, excellent, Sure that they're
• 49:11
  kind of on a par. And her arc for me is one of the
• 49:14
  most interesting because she's got to learn to understand where
• 49:17
  John's coming from. She's a success and he's not,
• 49:20
  but she's got to understand that he's really fucking good at his
• 49:22
  job. But you absolutely 100% by that.
• 49:25
  She could be president of that company and she could hold her
• 49:27
  own in the meeting. You totally, totally get it.
• 49:29
  Power here. Power suit.
• 49:31
  She's got that performance, great, great performance from
• 49:34
  Body Badelia and if she was given a little bit more time,
• 49:37
  she could take that Rolex off herself.
• 49:39
  Don't really think she needs John Strong of a character.
• 49:42
  She's excellent. Yeah, yeah.
• 49:44
  I don't really know Bonnie Badelia from anything other than
• 49:46
  Die Hard either, but this was the 15th feature film she'd been
• 49:48
  in. She'd been in the Shoot Horses,
• 49:50
  Don't they? And Hot Like a Wheel.
• 49:52
  So lots of experience at the time.
• 49:54
  And that shows because I think her acting skill is beyond
• 49:56
  question. Yeah.
• 49:58
  Oh, no doubt in not that many scenes.
• 49:59
  She makes Holly feel like a living, breathing person to me.
• 50:03
  Excellent actress with very good dramatic chops.
• 50:05
  And she adds a lot of, like, much needed grounded weight to
• 50:08
  the film. I think she's great all the way
• 50:10
  through. Also, did you know that Bonnie
• 50:12
  Badelia's full name is Bonnie Badelia Culkin and she is the
• 50:15
  aunt of Macaulay Culkin? Oh, well, there you are.
• 50:18
  I'm wondering. It's definitely a Christmas
• 50:20
  film. Exactly.
• 50:23
  It's a similar concept as, well, Home Alone to be a crossover
• 50:25
  there, surely? Oh.
• 50:26
  Yeah, exactly the same. Pain can slapping in the hands
• 50:29
  of his face. Bruce Willis was already cast
• 50:32
  when they were looking for an actress for the part of Holly,
• 50:35
  and it was Willis's idea to cast Bonnie Medelia because he'd seen
• 50:38
  her in Heart Like a Wheel and said she would bring heart,
• 50:41
  warmth and strength to the role. But she was incredibly surprised
• 50:45
  to be approached by Joel Silver about the role.
• 50:47
  Yeah, I mean he was right, Bruce Willis, but I just can't believe
• 50:50
  him in silver. I didn't go over some 21 year
• 50:52
  old blonde to be honest. They did for every other female
• 50:56
  in the film, and he looks at the ball.
• 51:00
  He just looked at them all California.
• 51:03
  Well, I'm going for John's other muse in the film, and that is
• 51:07
  Sergeant Al Powell, played by Reggie Bell Johnson.
• 51:10
  Yeah, lovely. I mean, God bless Al Powell.
• 51:13
  A lovely man. Yeah, he's wonderful.
• 51:15
  He's a sweetheart. He's just a flat footed desk
• 51:19
  jockey who's got roped into something way above his pay
• 51:22
  grade, but he really turns out to be the most effective person
• 51:25
  on the outside. Johnson and Johnson get blown to
• 51:27
  smithereens because of their gung ho approach.
• 51:30
  Dwayne T Robinson is a bootlicker but thinks he's a big
• 51:33
  shot, which leaves Powell. I really love that moment after
• 51:36
  Alice is killed and Powell is arguing with Dwayne and Hans
• 51:40
  gets on the radio attention police and Powell picks it up
• 51:43
  and he's full of confidence and he says this is Sajanelle Powell
• 51:47
  before Dwayne snatches it from him and timidly introduces
• 51:50
  himself over the radio. Just that little moment shows
• 51:53
  where both of these characters are in this situation and Powell
• 51:56
  is thriving. Ivan, I love that.
• 51:58
  Yeah, they're going after the lights and how?
• 52:01
  Builds up enough warmth and trust with McLean to get him
• 52:04
  through relatively unscathed. He's basically coaching him
• 52:08
  through the trauma of it all. If he didn't give John the pep
• 52:11
  talks and wasn't a friendly voice at the end of the radio
• 52:13
  talking about Twinkies, I mean, I imagine John's spirit would
• 52:17
  have probably broken. He's near as damned in that
• 52:19
  bathroom scene and the character.
• 52:22
  I mean, nobody dislikes him and that's not because of Val
• 52:25
  Johnson. He's got so much on screen
• 52:27
  warmth. It's it's a love, really love.
• 52:30
  You can't get enough of this performance.
• 52:32
  Not at all. Yeah, the character of Powell I
• 52:34
  think is a brilliant idea. Giving us someone on the outside
• 52:37
  gives them a clean a link to the outside world under the perfect
• 52:40
  outlet for exposition and back story, where McLean can just
• 52:43
  pour his heart out of all about what he thinks handed up to or
• 52:46
  his history with Holly. And it's all totally believable.
• 52:49
  And he is a good source of humor, especially in the scenes
• 52:51
  with Deputy Police Chief Dwayne T Robinson by Paul Gleason.
• 52:56
  The funniest lie in the film to me is where Powell's telling
• 52:58
  Robinson he thinks Mclean's a policeman because he made a
• 53:00
  comment about spotting A phony ID.
• 53:02
  And Dwayne's like Christ Powell, he could be a fucking bartender.
• 53:07
  Which Willis was, wasn't he? Before moonlighting?
• 53:09
  Yeah, he was. So yeah, good performance from
• 53:11
  regional Val Johnson and I think an excellent character.
• 53:14
  Caston Powell was an area where John McCain and Jackie Birch
• 53:17
  didn't agree at all. Mctain and wanted Bobby Duvall
• 53:21
  as Powell. Val Johnson later said that Gene
• 53:23
  Hackman had been cast but had to pull out you to scheduling
• 53:26
  conflicts, and Jackie Birch said Mctean was also interested in
• 53:30
  Laurence Fishburne, which I can see great.
• 53:32
  She wanted to cast an unknown, or specifically Reginald Val
• 53:36
  Johnson, and she said Mctean and Silva.
• 53:38
  He's the nicest man you'll ever meet and you need him just the
• 53:42
  way Bonnie Badelia is as an asset for Bruce, which is
• 53:45
  fucking spot on. It is.
• 53:47
  That's why she's a casting director.
• 53:49
  Too right? Yeah.
• 53:50
  He's the nicest man you'll ever know.
• 53:53
  That comes across as. Well, I love that.
• 53:54
  I bet he's a fucking legend. Yeah, Jackie Birch said that
• 53:57
  casting Die Hard, John Mctiernan was her least favorite director
• 54:00
  to work with. Like ever.
• 54:01
  Right. Right.
• 54:02
  She said that he would hold auditions, him and his wife, and
• 54:04
  they would turn down actors, actresses, for reasons like they
• 54:07
  didn't like their eyebrows. What?
• 54:09
  And Birch had to go with Joe Silva about it, and they ended
• 54:11
  up being her and Silva who did most of the casting.
• 54:14
  Oh. Really.
• 54:15
  Yeah. I mean, you can change eyebrows.
• 54:17
  I guess that's all right. I should, Roger, I'd auditioned
• 54:22
  his eyebrows. Get out.
• 54:25
  Two caterpillars shagging on his forehead.
• 54:28
  Before Die Hard, Phil Johnson had minor roles in other films.
• 54:32
  Obviously we know him as the corrections officer in
• 54:34
  Ghostbusters, basically the same guy he was here.
• 54:38
  He was living in his mother's basement at the time and
• 54:40
  desperate for any acting gig at the start of his audition tape,
• 54:44
  he said. I'm not sure you're going to
• 54:46
  give me this role, but if you do, I'll give you the best
• 54:49
  performance you could ever hope for if.
• 54:52
  That's OK. He's looking.
• 54:56
  The tape didn't just get turned off at that point.
• 54:57
  Who's this loser? But when he did get the part, he
• 55:03
  went on ride alongs with real police officers for first hand
• 55:06
  experience. I think that's wasted time, to
• 55:08
  be quite honest, yeah. You just do that in the film.
• 55:11
  No, he doesn't. Not at all, no, just by himself.
• 55:14
  Should have just eat a lot of Twinkies.
• 55:16
  Just talk and walkie talkies for a bit.
• 55:18
  Would it be like the hard way, wouldn't it, with J.
• 55:19
  Fox and Woods. Oh yeah, brilliant.
• 55:23
  As well as a lot of prep for the role, Val Johnson also did some
• 55:26
  of his own stunts. Believe that he actually talked
• 55:32
  on the radio. He.
• 55:34
  Actually. Yeah, the moment where Powell
• 55:37
  arrives on the scene and is being shot at and reverses his
• 55:40
  car and crashes over the wall. Reginald Bell Johnson filmed
• 55:43
  that himself. Wow.
• 55:44
  Brilliant. Also when they were filming the
• 55:46
  bathroom scene. This is lovely when the film the
• 55:48
  bathroom scene where McLean and Powell have a heart to heart.
• 55:50
  Your favorite look. Yeah.
• 55:51
  Willis was struggling with the dialogue and asked if Val
• 55:53
  Johnson could come to the set. So Val Johnson wasn't due to
• 55:56
  start filming yet, but flew in from New York especially just to
• 55:59
  be in the room with Willis for that scene.
• 56:02
  That's amazing. I mean, I'm sure he was fearful
• 56:04
  of just being canned so that he would just do anything.
• 56:06
  Yeah, I'll give you the best performance you've ever seen
• 56:09
  immediately. Yeah, I'll come now.
• 56:11
  Yeah, you said they thought was a bit strange to be asked that,
• 56:14
  but he just wanted to please everyone on the set.
• 56:16
  Yeah. And Reginald L Johnson also said
• 56:18
  that when his mother saw him in the film, she cried and he
• 56:21
  bought her a house in a car with the money he made.
• 56:25
  God. Crazy.
• 56:26
  Any better? If I couldn't love him anymore
• 56:28
  so. Yeah, maybe.
• 56:29
  He's nicest man you'll ever meet.
• 56:32
  They are yet more cast members worth mentioning.
• 56:34
  In Die Hard. We're going to talk about Hard
• 56:36
  Bach, Nars Ellis and Alexander Gorginova's called Rescue
• 56:39
  shortly. And also I think, William
• 56:41
  Atherton give us a good turn. There's the slimy reporter
• 56:43
  Richard Thornburg. Yeah, brilliant.
• 56:46
  William Atherton as William Atherton.
• 56:49
  Yeah, Steve Nita. So as I said that William
• 56:51
  Atherton was the go to asshole in Hollywood at the time and.
• 56:55
  He's so good at it. In our main Castro, Bruce
• 56:58
  Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia and Regional of L
• 57:01
  Johnson. Some iconic performances.
• 57:04
  Oh, absolutely. So memorable, everybody.
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  That's betterhelp.com/A TRM. Thanks again to better help for
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  sponsoring this episode. The middle.
• 58:35
  Into the middle of Die Hard, the film starts to show why it has
• 58:38
  its reputation with wall to wall action coming thick and fast,
• 58:41
  and we've got some huge moments to talk about.
• 58:43
  Oh yeah, the scenes where Hans meets Ellis then comes face to
• 58:47
  face with McLean are coming. But first, it's a couple of huge
• 58:50
  set pieces. It is.
• 58:52
  Yes, it is. So with McLean having killed
• 58:55
  Tony and then attracted the attention of the LAPD, Ellie's
• 58:58
  finest turn up and find themselves right in the thick of
• 59:00
  it. The following sequences bring us
• 59:02
  Sergeant Al Powell's entrance into the film and the LAPD SWAT
• 59:06
  team steaming into the Nakatomi like a quarterback and becoming
• 59:09
  toast. Nice.
• 59:11
  Welcome to the party, Luke. Oh, yes, Yeah, I love it when
• 59:15
  Powell shows up in Nakatomi. McCain thinks this is his
• 59:18
  saviour, the guy who's been buying so many Twinkies that he
• 59:21
  has to balance them under his chin.
• 59:26
  And when he gets there, AL's naturally going to be taken in
• 59:29
  by Eddie's Southern charm, complete with his cowboy boots.
• 59:33
  Evening, officer. What can I do for you?
• 59:34
  He looks it. Al will swallow anything to get
• 59:39
  home for his pregnant wife for Christmas and and Eddie's
• 59:42
  completely believable Dennis Hayden as the guy who couldn't
• 59:45
  give a shit. He's stuck alone, 50 bucks on
• 59:48
  the game. 50 bucks on these dead holes.
• 59:52
  Help yourself. I like the bit where upstairs
• 59:56
  Marco comes blazing into the room and is chasing McLean as he
• 1:00:00
  snakes under the table. Yeah, fantastic.
• 1:00:02
  And I think he should have worked on his aim because he's
• 1:00:04
  specifically shooting where McLean isn't.
• 1:00:07
  Lefts and rights all over the place.
• 1:00:09
  Just shoot the table. No more table where you're
• 1:00:12
  going, pal. Great visual effect, though, The
• 1:00:16
  guy who gets hit before Margo turned it when the bits of his
• 1:00:19
  body are coming off, Yeah, it's great.
• 1:00:20
  Absolutely love that. But it's the coolest when McLean
• 1:00:24
  ices Marco, next time you have a chance to kill someone, don't
• 1:00:27
  hesitate. Thanks for the advice.
• 1:00:29
  It's amazing. It's been reported that John
• 1:00:32
  McCain and used extra loud blanks in the gun on set to
• 1:00:35
  create a more realistic sound. And it's massive.
• 1:00:37
  It's deafening the sound. It is, yeah.
• 1:00:39
  And that caused a problem for Willis.
• 1:00:40
  In this scene, the gun went off close to his face about 7 or 8
• 1:00:43
  times every take, and Willis said that he was left
• 1:00:45
  permanently 75% deaf in his left ear as a result. 75% Jesus.
• 1:00:51
  Crazy. And then at the end of this
• 1:00:53
  scene, Can you imagine being in AL's shoes?
• 1:00:57
  He's got his Christmas spring in his step.
• 1:00:59
  He's singing a song when he's leaving the building.
• 1:01:01
  Then from nowhere body comes falling from the sky and his
• 1:01:04
  reaction is totally believable because it would hightail at the
• 1:01:07
  hell out of there even in reverse.
• 1:01:09
  It's more simple as the lyrics, and he goes dum de dum
• 1:01:12
  delightful. Got that shot of Argyle having a
• 1:01:20
  great time on the phone? That's hilarious, yeah.
• 1:01:23
  And. Then Mcleans Welcome to the
• 1:01:28
  Party Pal, one of the most memorable lines in the film and
• 1:01:31
  more recently, catnip for meme enthusiasts around the world.
• 1:01:35
  Yeah, definitely, definitely. Yeah, the way Powell turns out,
• 1:01:38
  when the terrorists think they're getting away with it,
• 1:01:40
  and when McLean drops the corpse of Marco on the Power Squad car
• 1:01:43
  and then all hell instantly breaks loose, that's just
• 1:01:46
  brilliant. It's great.
• 1:01:47
  There's another really good example here of my tea and
• 1:01:49
  handling the shifting tones when he cuts from PAL reversing the
• 1:01:52
  car to that shot of Argyle, the chauffeur getting you smashed in
• 1:01:55
  the limb on and back again. And it's seamless.
• 1:01:58
  There's a couple nice switches with that shot as well of
• 1:01:59
  Argyle. Have you noticed there's Powell
• 1:02:01
  drives over the wall and we see it through our girls rear
• 1:02:04
  window. Marcos corpses healed from the
• 1:02:06
  car. All right.
• 1:02:07
  Oh really? I missed that.
• 1:02:08
  Right. Nice.
• 1:02:09
  Yeah. And when Paul arrives and like I
• 1:02:11
  told me and doesn't spot anything, McLean says.
• 1:02:13
  Who's driving this car? Stevie Wonder.
• 1:02:15
  Yeah, and then we could do our guy on the limo.
• 1:02:16
  He's listening to Stevie. Yeah, it's skeletons, isn't it?
• 1:02:19
  Yeah. He's got sunglasses on as well
• 1:02:20
  as that. He's got some these on.
• 1:02:22
  Amazing. It's like pitch black.
• 1:02:24
  Yeah, I'm going to go for a bit where where it gets heightened
• 1:02:29
  yet again. I mean every action sequence is
• 1:02:31
  just piles on top. It's like Lego isn't.
• 1:02:32
  It's fantastic. It's when the SWAT team enter
• 1:02:36
  and you think you will go, but you don't believe it for a
• 1:02:38
  second. They turn up.
• 1:02:39
  You don't feel any relief whatsoever.
• 1:02:41
  No, because you're just completely on the clean side And
• 1:02:44
  his performance. You match your assholes.
• 1:02:46
  No, no. He just knows for a fact that
• 1:02:48
  they're absolutely done for. And it's Dwayne's response.
• 1:02:52
  Yeah, I cringe every time when he says kick ass.
• 1:02:56
  Absolutely. Just go.
• 1:02:58
  Oh no, that's fucking so cringe, man.
• 1:03:02
  You can't pull that. Off No, he can't at all.
• 1:03:04
  And that other guy just sending the car, sending the car, so.
• 1:03:08
  Cocky. They're almost in.
• 1:03:10
  Yeah, it's just this real. Gung ho like USA bravado.
• 1:03:13
  We can do anything. And what is excellent in this
• 1:03:16
  sequence is the music and how it's just there, you firepower.
• 1:03:21
  They're so loud. You can't hear the score.
• 1:03:23
  It's just, but it's there and it builds and it's like this
• 1:03:25
  brooding thing and anything. You can kind of feel it.
• 1:03:28
  And I think that's just wonderful.
• 1:03:30
  And Mclean's got to solve the problem.
• 1:03:33
  He's got to just go right. Well, I've got to do something
• 1:03:35
  about it and it'll be the last thing I would think of.
• 1:03:38
  I would think I'm going to kill everybody if I push this out
• 1:03:40
  down an elevator shaft, I don't know where it's going to blow
• 1:03:43
  up. I don't know how much explosive
• 1:03:44
  I've got. I don't know what the folks
• 1:03:46
  going, I don't know what's going through his head, But when it
• 1:03:48
  works, it really does work. Yeah, it's wonderful.
• 1:03:51
  Take this under advisement. Dick weed again.
• 1:03:53
  Amazing. It's brilliant.
• 1:03:55
  When one of the SWAT team guys gets stung by that rules.
• 1:03:58
  Yeah, I mean, that's the color of the guys that were sending
• 1:04:01
  in. No wonder they get wiped out.
• 1:04:02
  Yeah, exactly. It's a great touch that.
• 1:04:04
  Yeah, it is. Yeah, in a film full of
• 1:04:06
  brilliant action scenes, this one might be my favorite.
• 1:04:09
  Yeah, I always like he was lying when the SWAT team come in where
• 1:04:12
  he's like twas the night before Christmas.
• 1:04:13
  Not a creature was staring, except the four assholes coming
• 1:04:16
  in the REI and standard two by two cover formation.
• 1:04:18
  Yeah, it's a great turn from Clarence Gillard Junior.
• 1:04:20
  This, like the quarterback, is toast.
• 1:04:23
  Yeah. Really brilliant.
• 1:04:25
  That shot of the RV, like rolling towards the Nakatomi, is
• 1:04:28
  brilliant and there's some excellent main job work
• 1:04:31
  throughout the film. And one of the best uses of it's
• 1:04:33
  here when McLean blows the building and we get that shot
• 1:04:35
  from outside the building. Yeah, like several explosions
• 1:04:38
  going off. Yeah, that's a miniature.
• 1:04:39
  It looks totally real to me. Again, Dwayne is rubbish where
• 1:04:44
  he doesn't even know what's going on when they start
• 1:04:45
  shooting at the lights. How did he get that job?
• 1:04:49
  They're shooting at them. It's panic, fire.
• 1:04:51
  They can't see anything. It's great.
• 1:04:53
  Feel again. It's like the police have
• 1:04:55
  themselves in RFA. He's excited about it.
• 1:04:57
  Wonderful stuff. Yeah, in that scene when the
• 1:04:59
  tank is hit with the rocket launcher, a false railing was
• 1:05:02
  added that the tank crushes and boards were painted to look like
• 1:05:05
  stone flooring. And a fake missile was fired
• 1:05:08
  down a piano wire from the tank to the building and the wire was
• 1:05:11
  covered in acid so it didn't show on camera.
• 1:05:13
  Looks amazing and they did a load of takes, but the tank
• 1:05:17
  withstood every single one of them.
• 1:05:19
  Really fired by Vico? It does look brilliant, that
• 1:05:25
  shot. I love it when hand is like, hit
• 1:05:27
  it again. Yeah, and this isn't going or
• 1:05:30
  explosion porn. Well, I mean, it is obviously.
• 1:05:33
  It is. It isn't just that it's all so
• 1:05:35
  well put together, so well shot. There's a definite craft to
• 1:05:38
  what's going on as well. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:39
  Incredible stuff. Staging at the action scenes
• 1:05:42
  after Amazing. Superb.
• 1:05:43
  The moment McLean creates the C4 fireball obviously couldn't be
• 1:05:47
  done on an actual 30 story elevator shaft, so Richard
• 1:05:50
  Edlund and his crew created a 23 foot high replica.
• 1:05:53
  I mean, that's still pretty big. Massive.
• 1:05:56
  The tape back to the ground to create the illusion that it was
• 1:05:59
  the actual size. The top was 4 feet by 6 feet and
• 1:06:02
  the bottom was 9 or 6 by 9 inches.
• 1:06:05
  Tiny lights and pipe were by added and every elevator door
• 1:06:08
  and shaft were hand painted to scale.
• 1:06:11
  You just can't tell. You can't.
• 1:06:13
  Looks incredible. Yeah.
• 1:06:15
  And then to create the shot of the flames rushing up the shaft,
• 1:06:17
  the film did a lower frame rate and then speed it up.
• 1:06:19
  Yeah, And the shot where it blasts out the elevator and
• 1:06:22
  McLean kind of dies for cover. That was done by recreating the
• 1:06:24
  set as a scale model. It all looks just perfect.
• 1:06:27
  I've never questioned any of it. Nah.
• 1:06:29
  I mean, would a New York beat cop know how to fashion and make
• 1:06:32
  sure fireball bomb from a computer monitor and office
• 1:06:34
  chair? Maybe not, But it's glorious.
• 1:06:37
  Yeah. Of.
• 1:06:37
  Course it's glorious. I don't know how it works.
• 1:06:39
  Don't care. So it's all going off with the
• 1:06:44
  Nakatomi explosions and gunfire, and it's all pretty good.
• 1:06:47
  Oh. That's fantastic.
• 1:06:49
  Isn't. Yeah, too right?
• 1:06:52
  In the middle of all the carnage and destruction, Die Hard also
• 1:06:55
  has time for some memorable character scenes.
• 1:06:58
  Two of the biggest revolve around hands.
• 1:07:00
  Firstly when he's visited by Office Up and cokehead Harry
• 1:07:03
  Ellis and then when he finally comes face to face with McLean,
• 1:07:07
  Luke Preck and See Talk. Oh yeah.
• 1:07:11
  Well, I'm going to talk about the very best here.
• 1:07:13
  The moment where Alice and Hans finally meet.
• 1:07:17
  I love that he has a couple of toots just Gee himself up before
• 1:07:20
  he goes into the battle on the border.
• 1:07:21
  Yeah, brilliant, because Alice is the epitome of the 80s,
• 1:07:26
  high-powered, big business yuppie who thinks that he can
• 1:07:28
  baffle people with words and a fountain pen.
• 1:07:30
  Yeah, yeah, the moment where Carl gestures to his gun as
• 1:07:34
  Alice is introducing himself. He's one of the greatest subtle
• 1:07:37
  moments in the film, which is whack this guy out now and see
• 1:07:39
  if ourselves a problem. But Alice gets his 60 minutes
• 1:07:43
  and he thinks he's got it all sewn up.
• 1:07:45
  He gives Carl a little nudge and he says the guy upstairs is
• 1:07:48
  fucking things up. He's got his kind of pop.
• 1:07:52
  He's got Hans's attention. He thinks he's got it made.
• 1:07:55
  Hey Jan boy. It's wonderful that he's got
• 1:07:57
  coke and he's taking coke and he's probably asked for a Coke
• 1:08:00
  in the government. Different kind of corner.
• 1:08:02
  I love it, man. It's fucking excellent.
• 1:08:03
  It's brilliant, but he completely underestimate Hans's
• 1:08:06
  absolute drive to get what he wants.
• 1:08:08
  And if that means killing Alice in cold blood over the radio
• 1:08:11
  waves to root McLean out, well, it's just a no brainer.
• 1:08:14
  Yeah, it's such a highlight this scene.
• 1:08:16
  It's incredible. It is, but Alice is a total
• 1:08:19
  tool. Ah, he's amazing.
• 1:08:21
  I can't abide him, especially when he's like, stop messing up
• 1:08:24
  the works capiche. Oh.
• 1:08:27
  It's just the look he gives sounds of the guest eyebrow to
• 1:08:29
  him. He's like, yeah, yeah.
• 1:08:33
  Yeah, and unlike Takagi, who seems a nice man, I'm perfectly
• 1:08:36
  happy to see Ellis get shot in the face.
• 1:08:38
  Yeah, The way the whole scene is put together though, like a
• 1:08:41
  three-way conversation between Ellis, McLean and Hans, I think
• 1:08:44
  is excellent. It gives us with us a chance to
• 1:08:46
  flex some of his more dramatic acting muscles.
• 1:08:48
  And he delivers really good when he says to Hans he doesn't know
• 1:08:51
  what kind of man you are. But I do.
• 1:08:53
  Yeah. But as much as I love this
• 1:08:55
  scene, it does expose a plot hole.
• 1:08:57
  In the film, after Hans kills Ellis, he says to McLean, give
• 1:09:00
  me my detonator as, oh, I kill another hostage.
• 1:09:02
  I mean, why doesn't he? That's definitely what Hans
• 1:09:04
  would do. And McLean would have to give
• 1:09:06
  himself up. He'd have no choice.
• 1:09:07
  It's the only flaw in the plot for me, which is a shame.
• 1:09:10
  But the scene with Ellis is really good.
• 1:09:12
  I mean, if anybody wants to put somebody off doing drugs, forget
• 1:09:15
  that Grangel song. Just show them, Ellison.
• 1:09:17
  Die hard. Yeah, please do.
• 1:09:20
  Just say no. The actor who played Ellis was
• 1:09:24
  Hart Bachner and he improvised loads here.
• 1:09:27
  In this scene, he came up with the line where he says Hans
• 1:09:30
  Bobby, I'm your white knight. To me, I mean one of the best.
• 1:09:35
  Brilliant. He said that he thought it would
• 1:09:37
  be fun to throw a little Yiddish in there for good measure.
• 1:09:41
  Yeah, it was hard button his idea to make Ellis funny and he
• 1:09:44
  said that after his first few takes.
• 1:09:45
  My Tianan came up to him and said, I don't know what you
• 1:09:48
  think you're doing, but I hate it.
• 1:09:52
  Think Cary Grant. It's what my Tianan said.
• 1:09:54
  It's. Terrible.
• 1:09:56
  But unfortunately for my Tianan, Joel Silva thought Ellis was
• 1:09:58
  hilarious, so we told Button to keep on doing it.
• 1:10:00
  Yeah, he probably seemed very familiar.
• 1:10:02
  Joel Silva would have thought, yeah, better people he deals
• 1:10:05
  with. It.
• 1:10:06
  I can deal with this Euro trash. Before we move on from Ellis, we
• 1:10:11
  have our second Patreon question and it's about Ellis.
• 1:10:14
  All right. It comes from Eamon Keating.
• 1:10:17
  Merry Christmas, Eamon. Hi, Eamon.
• 1:10:19
  Hi, Eamon. And Eamon is asking, is Ellis
• 1:10:22
  the greatest depiction of an 80s douchebag guy ever?
• 1:10:26
  So yes, it's my answer. There you go.
• 1:10:29
  What do you think, Wesley? I think there's a few.
• 1:10:32
  I don't want to step on Luke's toes here, but I've got a few
• 1:10:34
  and one might be crossing swords.
• 1:10:35
  But we shall see. Carter Burke from Aliens,
• 1:10:39
  obviously. Piece of shit.
• 1:10:40
  Swords crossed. Yep.
• 1:10:42
  William Atherton is William Atherton and he's in here as
• 1:10:45
  well. So you've got 2 for one.
• 1:10:46
  Brilliant. For me though, you're.
• 1:10:48
  Going to say the same person that I'm thinking of who you're
• 1:10:50
  Westie. Do you record right?
• 1:10:52
  OK, yeah. Do you want to say it at the
• 1:10:53
  same time after three? OK.
• 1:10:56
  Right, 123 Chase. Always.
• 1:11:03
  Bryce coming, if anyone said that.
• 1:11:08
  I'm going for Bill Paxton and Weird Science is Chet Donnelly
• 1:11:12
  Piece of Shit. Yeah, well, I mean, as it's
• 1:11:17
  Christmas, you just cannot go far wrong with John Glover, who
• 1:11:21
  plays Bryce Cummins in Screw. It's a bad colour for New York.
• 1:11:26
  Oh blue. He's an earlier slimeball, but
• 1:11:31
  he's just the epitome of corporate 80s America.
• 1:11:33
  With his conscientious diet as he's got to the California
• 1:11:36
  Health place and his paper thin business talk.
• 1:11:38
  There is no I in TE AM Yeah. Awful.
• 1:11:42
  Yeah, but I mean Alice. He's almost certainly top of the
• 1:11:46
  pile for me. He's right up there for sure.
• 1:11:49
  I'm going to go for my favorite meeting of two characters in
• 1:11:52
  this film. Probably everyone's favorite
• 1:11:53
  meeting of two characters in this film is when McLean runs
• 1:11:55
  into hands, and hands says he's Bill Clay.
• 1:11:59
  Now this is beautiful on every level.
• 1:12:03
  The way Jan Devon shoots this, the way Mcteon and shoots is
• 1:12:05
  it's Dutch angles from the start.
• 1:12:07
  Oh yeah. All the way through.
• 1:12:09
  It's not just so it's very, very much in your face.
• 1:12:11
  And it shouldn't work, but it definitely does.
• 1:12:14
  And what Willis does, he turns McLean into this stereotypical
• 1:12:18
  hard cop, which he isn't. He kind of plays the role of
• 1:12:22
  what Hans expects him to be like.
• 1:12:25
  Yeah, a bit of bravado. Yeah, and we don't know if
• 1:12:26
  McLean knows straight away. And I've always been fascinated
• 1:12:29
  by the performances that the both give here.
• 1:12:33
  I think it's just a really wonderful moment in the film
• 1:12:35
  that could really make it sag. It needs to have that level of
• 1:12:39
  tension, and it really does. And like I said before, when he
• 1:12:41
  turns back into Hans Gruber and he's out of focus and he's just
• 1:12:44
  talking on the radio and that gun comes down, but no bullet,
• 1:12:47
  it's like a fucking stupid hard. And then again, there's that
• 1:12:50
  Ding of the elevator. Every time that elevator Dings,
• 1:12:52
  something terrible happens and it gets progressively worse.
• 1:12:55
  But I think, yeah, this sequence, the way that it's
• 1:12:57
  shot, the way that it's acted, it's an absolute master class in
• 1:13:00
  visual storytelling and in acting and in writing, It all
• 1:13:03
  comes together for me in the middle of an action film where
• 1:13:05
  it should really sag. It really doesn't.
• 1:13:08
  I agree. I think it's excellent.
• 1:13:10
  I mean, Alan Rickman is brilliant.
• 1:13:12
  His hands. I love him, his hands.
• 1:13:14
  But his American accent as Bill Clay is not good.
• 1:13:17
  Nah, be on fucking TV with that accent.
• 1:13:22
  What I love about this scene though is that we're with hands,
• 1:13:24
  as you're checking on the explosives, and then he comes
• 1:13:26
  across McLean like from nowhere. We get a shot of McLean from
• 1:13:29
  Hans POV, and because we've not seen McLean for a bit, we're not
• 1:13:33
  expecting to see him and we don't know how he got there.
• 1:13:35
  So it's the only time in the film where we see McLean, how
• 1:13:37
  Hans and his crew see him, this kind of enigma who just shows up
• 1:13:41
  and seeing him in that light, he looks crazy, scruffy smoking
• 1:13:46
  Nutter with a gun. That's terrifying.
• 1:13:48
  I had to get out of there. And the whole action scene that
• 1:13:54
  falls where hands is like shoot the glass.
• 1:13:56
  How intense is that? It's mad.
• 1:13:58
  There must be 500 shots fired in that scene alone.
• 1:14:01
  Yeah, it's great. I know they spend $130,000 just
• 1:14:04
  on glass, but again, they've earned the gun porn with the
• 1:14:07
  great character moment just before between McLean and Hans.
• 1:14:10
  And with there being so much glass on the floor, if you watch
• 1:14:12
  carefully, we do see a couple of shots where Bruce Willis is
• 1:14:15
  clearly wearing, like, the fake silicone Hobbit feet.
• 1:14:18
  Yeah, for. Safety but little booties.
• 1:14:19
  Yeah, you see that? You see that later on.
• 1:14:21
  It's already chosen helicopter. But again, great, right?
• 1:14:23
  And great foreshadowing, because in the in the scene just before
• 1:14:26
  this, McLean says Glass, who gives a shit about Glass?
• 1:14:29
  Now he gives a shit about it. Lovely.
• 1:14:30
  So it's really nice. There's loads of that.
• 1:14:32
  If you look for it, it's amazing.
• 1:14:33
  Yeah, the writer Stephenita Susan knew that he needed a
• 1:14:36
  scene before the climax where McLean and Hans meet each other,
• 1:14:39
  but couldn't quite figure out how to get them into a scene
• 1:14:42
  together. He'd heard from the crew that
• 1:14:44
  Rickman could do a great California accent, which
• 1:14:47
  obviously he was lied to about. So.
• 1:14:51
  He had the idea of this scene. He'd already written it between
• 1:14:54
  McLean and Theo, but swapped Theo out for Hans much.
• 1:14:58
  Better would have been good. With Theo as well.
• 1:15:00
  But yeah, it's got to be Hans. It's got to be.
• 1:15:02
  Hans, of course it has. They got a bit lucky because the
• 1:15:04
  scene where hand shoots the car, he was scheduled to be shot the
• 1:15:07
  next day after this one. Obviously Mclean's outside the
• 1:15:10
  room I'm not seeing, so this gave me a 10 in the chance to
• 1:15:12
  change around the base to the Mclean's there, but doesn't
• 1:15:14
  actually see hands. I mean, that would have been
• 1:15:17
  more hell of a plot. Or if they missed that huge it
• 1:15:20
  doesn't recognize the guy who's watching shoot someone in the
• 1:15:22
  face. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:15:23
  McLean finds out who Hans is when he realizes Bill Clay is a
• 1:15:26
  name on the directory board. And if you look carefully,
• 1:15:29
  there's some other familiar names on there too.
• 1:15:31
  D'souza, de Govia and De Bond are all on their Stephen A
• 1:15:35
  D'souza was the writer, Jackson de Govia was the production
• 1:15:38
  designer and John de Bond was the director of photography.
• 1:15:42
  Can't believe they didn't get your silver in there.
• 1:15:44
  That would have been awesome. The board's not big enough.
• 1:15:48
  Every name? Joe Silver.
• 1:15:49
  Joe Silver. Blaze and Saddles, Silver,
• 1:15:57
  Silver, Silver, Silver. And the moment where hands jumps
• 1:16:00
  down and lands at Mclean's feet, Rickman felt crack in his knee
• 1:16:04
  when he landed. And he went to the hospital and
• 1:16:06
  was told that it was either a torn ligament, which would have
• 1:16:09
  meant that he would have been out of the film, or a torn
• 1:16:12
  cartilage, which would repair quickly, right.
• 1:16:14
  So you'd still be in there. Luckily it turned out to be a
• 1:16:16
  torn cartilage, but he was injured for a couple of days on
• 1:16:19
  set and shooting the scene where Hans has a cigarette with
• 1:16:22
  McLean. Rickman was on crutches and in
• 1:16:24
  plaster. Wow.
• 1:16:25
  And George Silver told him to lose the crutches.
• 1:16:27
  So the moment where he's pointing the gun at McLean,
• 1:16:29
  Rickman's standing on one leg. Oh wow.
• 1:16:31
  Great balance. Even better, he is leaned up
• 1:16:33
  against the wall quite a bit in that scene.
• 1:16:35
  Isn't when he's smoking. I guess that's why.
• 1:16:36
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:16:38
  He doesn't give a toss, Silver does.
• 1:16:39
  He kicking people's crutches away.
• 1:16:40
  Yeah. Get rid of that shit.
• 1:16:41
  You don't need that. So Rickman should know about 42.
• 1:16:44
  You don't go jumping off anything.
• 1:16:45
  Fuck that. And that is the end of the
• 1:16:49
  middle. The tensions been ramped up, The
• 1:16:51
  actions been ramped up, The stakes have been ramped up.
• 1:16:54
  Only the FBI can sort this mess out, surely.
• 1:16:56
  Surely they can. No relationship.
• 1:16:58
  BI. The crew.
• 1:17:06
  So there may have been the relatively inexperienced team in
• 1:17:09
  front of the cameras on Die Hard.
• 1:17:11
  Not so behind the cameras. We're going to be talking about
• 1:17:14
  the contributions made by composer Michael Kamen and
• 1:17:17
  director of photography Yande Bond shortly, but we're going to
• 1:17:20
  start with the screenplay. OK.
• 1:17:23
  So the credited writers of Die Hard or Jeb Stewart and Stephen
• 1:17:26
  E de Souser. Die Hard was Stewart's first
• 1:17:28
  ever screenplay. Not the case with De Souser.
• 1:17:31
  It was his seventh screenplay. Before this, his credits
• 1:17:33
  included 48 Hours Commando and The Running Man.
• 1:17:37
  Right. Slightly peculiar writing combo
• 1:17:40
  here, then. Very much.
• 1:17:41
  But how was the writing on Die Hard?
• 1:17:43
  Yeah, I think the writing on Die Hard is superb.
• 1:17:45
  It stands head and shoulders above practically anything in
• 1:17:48
  the genre in terms of writing to me.
• 1:17:50
  And the stand out for me is the subtle story beats in the genre.
• 1:17:54
  There are often those kind of light bulb moments that feel
• 1:17:57
  forced and obvious, but I really don't get that here.
• 1:18:01
  There are these very subtle moments that are very important
• 1:18:03
  for the narrative later on. Like, for example, when Holly is
• 1:18:07
  pissed off that John hasn't been in touched and in her fury
• 1:18:09
  neither start, she slams the family photo down.
• 1:18:12
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, a natural step for that character to take.
• 1:18:15
  But that photograph is pivotal later for hands.
• 1:18:18
  And then when John arrives at Nakatomi and tells Takagi that
• 1:18:21
  he's got quite a place here, and he says it will be, we've still
• 1:18:24
  got several floors under construction.
• 1:18:25
  Yeah, a great setup for when John is hiding out upstairs.
• 1:18:29
  Just one line of natural dialogue sorts.
• 1:18:31
  All of that out. Yeah, without being too.
• 1:18:33
  Forced. Great exposition, yeah.
• 1:18:34
  It really flows without those sledgehammer moments that force
• 1:18:37
  your attention to a particular beat.
• 1:18:39
  Yeah, And I think this has helped the film's longevity.
• 1:18:42
  You really do get rewarded with repeat viewings, particularly
• 1:18:46
  with the complexities of Hans's master plan near the end.
• 1:18:49
  Yeah, because it is quite complex.
• 1:18:50
  It is. But repeat viewings really,
• 1:18:53
  really highlight what's going on in the writing.
• 1:18:57
  Yeah, I mean, it's an action film.
• 1:18:58
  It's not a biopic or a character study.
• 1:19:00
  So it's not the most thematically rich or deep piece
• 1:19:02
  of writing you'll ever see. But for what it is, a big action
• 1:19:05
  blockbuster, I think it's pretty much a master class.
• 1:19:08
  And how to write that kind of film, Yeah, I mean the concept
• 1:19:11
  loan, every man trapped in a confined location with a load of
• 1:19:13
  bad guys, that's now a classic action sub genre of its own.
• 1:19:17
  So really influential. I mentioned the plot hole around
• 1:19:20
  the hostages earlier, but aside from that I think the plotting
• 1:19:23
  is excellent. The perils ramped up bit by bit
• 1:19:26
  and the action beats when they comb are character driven and
• 1:19:28
  inventive, like McLean jumping off the building with a fire
• 1:19:31
  hose around his waist. Great idea, and a part of the
• 1:19:35
  writing I think makes Diehard stand out from its many
• 1:19:37
  imitators is the character writing it very much,
• 1:19:40
  specifically the dynamics between the characters.
• 1:19:42
  All the characters have their own individual relationship with
• 1:19:45
  each other. McLean has a relationship with
• 1:19:47
  Holly, with Hans, with Powell, with Karl.
• 1:19:50
  They're all very different and mostly used to drive different
• 1:19:53
  types of conflicts, and they're all used to drive the narrative.
• 1:19:56
  The personal vendetta between Karl and McLean is a brilliant
• 1:19:59
  addition. The buddy cop type relationship
• 1:20:01
  between Powell and McLean is a brilliant addition and those
• 1:20:04
  dynamics to me give diehards such a like a richness in the
• 1:20:07
  writing beyond 99% of action films.
• 1:20:11
  And there's some great comic lines as well.
• 1:20:12
  I like it when the FBI first turned up and Dwayne's all over
• 1:20:15
  them. He's straightening his jacket
• 1:20:16
  before he walks over and Paul's like one of breath mint.
• 1:20:19
  Yeah. So yeah, very good writing.
• 1:20:22
  Excellent, I think, for this kind of film.
• 1:20:24
  Yeah. And when you are saying there
• 1:20:25
  about characters as well, you can kind of tell how each
• 1:20:27
  character would interact with another one, even if they don't
• 1:20:30
  necessarily do that. You know how Hollywood told to
• 1:20:32
  call? Yeah, you know, you know how
• 1:20:34
  call would talk to Powell. What I really love about this is
• 1:20:36
  the clarity and the simplicity, and it does seem like it's a
• 1:20:40
  very complicated plot, but it's super easy to follow, which
• 1:20:43
  makes it even more enjoyable. But what they've done with that
• 1:20:46
  is the foreshadowed Almost everything has a double beat.
• 1:20:49
  In this film that the starts, you've got even something very
• 1:20:53
  sort of like McLean. He should be in the back of the
• 1:20:55
  limo, but he's in the front. When Duane turns up, he's in the
• 1:20:58
  back of the car when he should be in the front.
• 1:21:01
  Nice and it's just these little subtle things where you go, but
• 1:21:03
  he's in the wrong place. He's in the right place.
• 1:21:05
  Just that little speech on the plane where the guy gives him
• 1:21:07
  make fest with the tours that gives him the motivation and not
• 1:21:10
  have any issues later on. That's brilliant little things
• 1:21:12
  that the Twinkies and I was buying them and you think what
• 1:21:15
  you buying Twinkies for and that's all that McLean gets to
• 1:21:17
  eat. That's the only thing that
• 1:21:18
  powers him through. And he's like, you know, it's a
• 1:21:20
  20 year old, 20, but they bond over that owl when he's talking
• 1:21:24
  about his wife's pregnant, this kid on the way and the fact that
• 1:21:26
  he killed a kid and there's that retribution to the character.
• 1:21:29
  And then Leah's there. There's the Rolex that gets
• 1:21:32
  introduced by Ellis and the Rolex is what kills hands at the
• 1:21:35
  end. Show him the watch.
• 1:21:36
  I'm sure I'll say it later. He definitely sees it later.
• 1:21:39
  Wonderful. And then like Luke said, that
• 1:21:40
  photograph that gets put down and that's ultimately what gets
• 1:21:44
  Holly in trouble at the end. The fact that she's ignored our
• 1:21:46
  relationship with John and sees that.
• 1:21:48
  And then that's the retribution that comes from that.
• 1:21:50
  And that is just a few examples in this film.
• 1:21:52
  And there's many, many more. And that's how deep, layered and
• 1:21:55
  clear the writing is. So I urge anyone just to watch
• 1:21:58
  this another 200 times and see how many you can actually pick
• 1:22:01
  out, because it's like the perfect lasagna.
• 1:22:06
  Clea, lasagna for you. I always see through.
• 1:22:09
  See through. I don't cook it, probably.
• 1:22:10
  I don't think you can clearly see the layers.
• 1:22:12
  That's what I'm getting. Diehards based on Nothing Lasts
• 1:22:15
  Forever. We mentioned before by Roderick
• 1:22:17
  Thorpe, which was published in 1979.
• 1:22:20
  From Producing The Detective with Frank Sinatra, 20th Century
• 1:22:23
  Fox had the Rights to Nothing, last forever before Thorpe even
• 1:22:26
  wrote it. Well, Jeb Stewart had written a
• 1:22:29
  spec script which was picked up by Columbia but then dropped in
• 1:22:31
  1987, leaving him desperate for another writing gig.
• 1:22:35
  His agent managed to get him the job, adapt and laugh and last
• 1:22:37
  forever, and Stewart said I would have taken the Dead Sea
• 1:22:40
  Scrolls if they offered it to me.
• 1:22:43
  Good luck adopting those, put. Jeb Stewart, at the time
• 1:22:47
  apparently was working as a tennis pro when he got given the
• 1:22:50
  Nothing Last Forever gig. Oh.
• 1:22:51
  Really right. Brilliant.
• 1:22:52
  Let's get Tim Hemming on the phone, see if he's got any
• 1:22:54
  ideas. Come on.
• 1:22:57
  Something really stuffy, no doubt.
• 1:22:59
  Edmonds your example terrible. And you're a fan of that sport
• 1:23:04
  as well. Do you want to?
• 1:23:05
  Know a little bit, Stewart. Like the book, But he was
• 1:23:08
  struggling to crack the story, as he put it.
• 1:23:10
  He said the book was nihilistic, but he'd been briefed to write a
• 1:23:14
  summer blockbuster, so he was kind of like, at odds.
• 1:23:16
  Then one night he got into a fight over a trivial matter with
• 1:23:19
  his wife and stormed out into his car, and he was on Elliott's
• 1:23:23
  Ventura Freeway and not paying attention to where he was going.
• 1:23:26
  He drove over an empty fridge box at 65 miles an hour.
• 1:23:30
  Wow. And when he pulled over by the
• 1:23:31
  side of the road, he said, I suddenly knew what nothing lasts
• 1:23:34
  forever was the guy has to say sorry and save his wife.
• 1:23:38
  Yes. Do you want to tell this story
• 1:23:40
  as if it's like a near death experience?
• 1:23:42
  He drove over a cardboard box. It's an empty.
• 1:23:44
  Cardboard. Box.
• 1:23:47
  And he also said that once he had the idea, he threw himself
• 1:23:49
  into the scripts and forgot to call his wife and apologize like
• 1:23:52
  you meant to. And he said she was very angry.
• 1:23:55
  Of course, it was when Joel Silva was brought in.
• 1:23:59
  Stuart said that Silva gave him a key bit of feedback.
• 1:24:02
  At some point in the film, the top of the building has to blow
• 1:24:05
  up. Yes, you are said that he argued
• 1:24:09
  there at the top of the building blew up.
• 1:24:11
  It would be like almost a failure from a clean.
• 1:24:13
  And Silva said that's not my problem.
• 1:24:15
  I'm not going to make someone pay $12.00 for a movie ticket
• 1:24:18
  and stand in the rain for two hours outside the theater and
• 1:24:20
  then the top of the fucking building doesn't blow.
• 1:24:25
  I was standing in the reef for two hours to watch dialogue and
• 1:24:29
  the second year director in the film was called Bull Marks and I
• 1:24:32
  saw an interview with him where he said Joel Silver greenlit the
• 1:24:34
  script because in his words it gave him a hard on well.
• 1:24:37
  I mean, wow, that's way too much info.
• 1:24:40
  And which bit I can think. As well as making changes to the
• 1:24:46
  script, Jules Silver instantly replaced Jeb Stewart as the
• 1:24:49
  writer. He said to him, this is great.
• 1:24:52
  It's nothing personal, but you're fired.
• 1:24:54
  This has nothing to do with the script.
• 1:24:56
  I love the script, but I don't know you.
• 1:24:58
  I've got to make a movie and I've got to make it fast.
• 1:25:00
  Instead, he brought in Steven Ada Sousa, who Silver worked
• 1:25:03
  with on 48 Hours Commando and German Jack Flash.
• 1:25:06
  Yes, you would tell that he was devastated when he was fired, as
• 1:25:09
  you would be. And Steven Edis, I was, I was
• 1:25:11
  briefed with lightning, the script up.
• 1:25:12
  And then he said Jeb's a really good writer, but he isn't as
• 1:25:16
  funny as me. Silva said.
• 1:25:19
  It's nothing personal, but you're fired.
• 1:25:22
  It's nothing to do with the script.
• 1:25:23
  I just don't know you. That is really personal.
• 1:25:25
  He's really. Personal.
• 1:25:28
  Yeah, so the salsa added in the ho ho ho the Tony's sweatshirt
• 1:25:31
  after McLean kills him, right? He added more wisecracks like
• 1:25:34
  McLean saying no fucking shit lady, do I sound like I'm
• 1:25:37
  ordering a pizza. And he added all the cowboy
• 1:25:39
  references like Roy Rogers, John Wayne, Gary Cooper.
• 1:25:43
  Four changes for the better. Yeah, turns out that he is
• 1:25:45
  funnier than Jeff Stewart. Yeah, Souser also made changes
• 1:25:50
  around the character of Powell. He removed a scene in a police
• 1:25:54
  station where Powell has made the butt of some cruel jokes
• 1:25:57
  about being very deadly with a handgun.
• 1:25:59
  Right, which was unfortunate. And he also shortened the scene
• 1:26:03
  where he's buying 20. He's at the gas station, right?
• 1:26:05
  Originally, when Powell got the code 2 call, two boys are in the
• 1:26:09
  store and they say to each other, I wonder what Code 2 is.
• 1:26:12
  Cupcake alert. Fan shaming there, surely, yeah.
• 1:26:19
  No Outrageous. You don't.
• 1:26:20
  Two kids hit the piss out of them.
• 1:26:21
  Yeah, he's already shot one kid. He's the Loose Cabin.
• 1:26:24
  Yeah, who knows what he would do?
• 1:26:27
  Exactly. So there were quite a lot of
• 1:26:29
  differences between Thorpe's original novel and what we end
• 1:26:32
  up seeing on the screen. In the book, the hero isn't a 30
• 1:26:35
  something New York cop called John McLean.
• 1:26:37
  He was a retired cop turned security guard called Joel
• 1:26:40
  Leland in his 60s. Yeah.
• 1:26:43
  So, Julia, there's a Carter that's not replayed in the
• 1:26:45
  Detective, right? So maybe not so strange that he
• 1:26:48
  was asked to be in the film. Nah.
• 1:26:49
  Not at all. Yeah, and kind of checks out by
• 1:26:52
  Paul Newman and the like. The film revolves around a bunch
• 1:26:58
  of German thieves robbing the Nakatomi Corporation.
• 1:27:01
  In the novel, it's a group of terrorists who are planning to
• 1:27:03
  expose the clacks and corporations dealing with
• 1:27:06
  Chile's fascist regime. Yeah, which kind of makes the
• 1:27:10
  bad guys, the good guys. More or less, yeah.
• 1:27:13
  I think it works better as a more black and white cowboy
• 1:27:15
  style heroes versus villains in the film definitely isn't it?
• 1:27:19
  The family member who needs saved in the book isn't Mclean's
• 1:27:21
  wife, Holly. It's Joel Leland's daughter,
• 1:27:24
  Stephanie. Yeah, and where is Holly?
• 1:27:26
  Like a decent, caring person. Stephanie's corrupt and immoral,
• 1:27:29
  and she's having an affair with Ellis, which is inexcusable.
• 1:27:32
  That would have been awful. Oh God.
• 1:27:36
  His surname is also Janeiro though, so that's where they got
• 1:27:38
  that from. Right, OK, In the book, the taxi
• 1:27:41
  driver just drops Leyland off and leaves the story, whereas
• 1:27:43
  Argyle sticks around and has a role to play and there is no
• 1:27:47
  Powell at all in the book. Yeah, so in the book, do you
• 1:27:50
  know the a stewardess who McLean kinda gives the eye to at the.
• 1:27:53
  Start of the film. Yes, I do.
• 1:27:56
  So I'd have it in the book, but Joe Leland takes her number and
• 1:27:59
  stays in contact with her throughout the film, so she's
• 1:28:01
  the kind of power figure who he's talking to all the way
• 1:28:03
  through. That's strange.
• 1:28:04
  OK. Yeah.
• 1:28:06
  I'm not interested, mate. See that fucking steward?
• 1:28:10
  That's what you want. You old bastard, you're perv
• 1:28:16
  and. Also, there's no happy ending.
• 1:28:18
  Stephanie dies at the end of the the novel when she falls from
• 1:28:20
  the building, and it's hinted out that Joel Leland dies from
• 1:28:23
  his injuries as well. Yeah, miserable.
• 1:28:26
  Merry Christmas. Leslie Miserable.
• 1:28:31
  But something I'm delighted to report that didn't change from
• 1:28:33
  book to screen is that in both versions, Ellis gets shot in the
• 1:28:37
  face. Beautiful.
• 1:28:39
  He had none, Ellis, He's brilliant.
• 1:28:42
  He's. A great character.
• 1:28:43
  I just. Really easy to hit on, to be
• 1:28:45
  fair, yeah. Another change that Joel Silver
• 1:28:47
  made as soon as he came on board was the title.
• 1:28:50
  He thought Nothing Lasts Forever.
• 1:28:52
  Sounded like a romance story. Yeah.
• 1:28:54
  To be fair, it does. Lost romance, obviously.
• 1:28:56
  Yeah, yeah. Shane Black was writing a film
• 1:28:58
  called Die Hard at the time, but Silver loved the title and
• 1:29:01
  persuaded him to let him have it.
• 1:29:02
  Right. Black changed the name of his
• 1:29:04
  script to the last Boy Scout instead.
• 1:29:06
  All right. Two great titles, Yeah.
• 1:29:08
  And yeah, really good. Great film as well.
• 1:29:10
  Yeah, apparently Roderick Thorpe was furious about the title
• 1:29:13
  change. He spoke the Silver about it,
• 1:29:14
  and Silver said the best thing that ever happened to your book
• 1:29:17
  is this movie. It's great silver, isn't it?
• 1:29:21
  Piece of work. Even though I've changed almost
• 1:29:24
  all of it. Yeah.
• 1:29:25
  One of the most famous lines in the film is when McLean says
• 1:29:28
  Yippee Kaye motherfucker to hands.
• 1:29:30
  I've got like that. Obviously it's a reference to
• 1:29:33
  Roy. Like iced?
• 1:29:37
  Yeah, one of my favorite moments in Boys in the Hood is when he
• 1:29:39
  said it's a reference to Roy Rogers, who sang the phrase in a
• 1:29:44
  song called I'm an Old Cow Hand. Yeah, I don't think Roy Rogers
• 1:29:48
  signed off with motherfucker, But maybe, maybe.
• 1:29:51
  Mother Clucker threw a chicken on the farm.
• 1:29:53
  I don't. Know and it was kind of disputed
• 1:29:56
  who came up with the line to sell.
• 1:29:58
  As I said, it was his and Bruce Willis said that he came up with
• 1:30:00
  it. But either way, brilliant line
• 1:30:03
  doesn't. Matter.
• 1:30:03
  It's It's iconic for a reason, isn't it?
• 1:30:06
  For writing Die Hard, Jeb Stewart and Stephen Eder Souser
• 1:30:09
  didn't get any major award recognition.
• 1:30:11
  It did benefit both their careers, though.
• 1:30:13
  Stewart went on to core Right another 48 Hours and The
• 1:30:16
  Fugitive and the Sauza returned to Ben Die Hard Two and also
• 1:30:19
  wrote Hudson Hawk, The Flintstones Street Fighter Judge
• 1:30:22
  Dredd and Lara Croft Tomb Raider.
• 1:30:25
  Right. So die Hard 2 then.
• 1:30:28
  Die hard to speak, then. Die hard.
• 1:30:30
  Two's good. Well, yeah.
• 1:30:31
  So neither of them are quite hit the heights of Die Hard again.
• 1:30:34
  I don't. Think I don't think so.
• 1:30:35
  Certainly. Not oh Judge Dredd, no.
• 1:30:40
  Moving on to the music and the composer who worked on Die Hard
• 1:30:43
  was Michael Kayman. Yeah, with a feature film career
• 1:30:46
  going back to 1976. Kayman had scored many films by
• 1:30:49
  this point, most notably Brazil Highlander, which you fell out
• 1:30:53
  of love. Absolutely.
• 1:30:55
  Amazing and Lethal Weapon, among others.
• 1:31:01
  How is Kayman's music on Die Hard or Wesley?
• 1:31:03
  Dunno. Can't hear it.
• 1:31:04
  Too much gunfire? No, it's great.
• 1:31:09
  It's it's very, very good. As an action score.
• 1:31:12
  It's not one that I could listen to independently, but it's
• 1:31:15
  definitely one that supports the visuals.
• 1:31:16
  And I think that's what Cayman's excellent at doing.
• 1:31:19
  He's not really renowned as being like, wow, this is a
• 1:31:21
  Michael Cayman score, but you kind of go, yeah, this is
• 1:31:23
  Michael Cayman film. And you know, he brings a vibe
• 1:31:26
  to it and he brings an emotion to it and he hits them emotions
• 1:31:29
  every single time. It's very, very sparse in
• 1:31:32
  places. It doesn't seem like it's really
• 1:31:34
  bombastic and in your face. But some of the smaller moments,
• 1:31:37
  some of the more intimate moments, it just works because
• 1:31:41
  it's just there and it's nothing you can recognize.
• 1:31:44
  And I think this is another film that we're covering that doesn't
• 1:31:47
  have a theme it you don't go, oh, that's the theme for Die
• 1:31:49
  Hard. It doesn't have one and it
• 1:31:51
  doesn't need one. I think it has a tone and it has
• 1:31:53
  an emotion and I think that's what he does really well.
• 1:31:56
  And if you watch the action signatures, the great thing that
• 1:31:58
  came in and Mctean and do is when the action stops, the music
• 1:32:02
  stops and you're left with this silence.
• 1:32:04
  So you have to kind of remember what you've seen and you have a
• 1:32:06
  breather. And I think he does that really
• 1:32:08
  well. Yeah, I think the music is one
• 1:32:11
  of the most underrated parts of the film.
• 1:32:13
  I mean, it doesn't, you're right, have a big original main
• 1:32:15
  theme or anything, but in complimenting John Mctiernan's
• 1:32:18
  vision, I think it's perfect. Yeah, Mctean is clearly taking
• 1:32:21
  his world and the story very seriously.
• 1:32:23
  For that to work, you have to nail the tone.
• 1:32:25
  Especially in a film which has so much humour.
• 1:32:28
  The film does nail it, and a big part of that is down to Michael
• 1:32:30
  Kayman's music, which is like a constant source of drama,
• 1:32:34
  tension, dread. I think it's excellent, but the
• 1:32:37
  most inspired thing about the music to me is the use of
• 1:32:40
  Beethoven's Sympathy #9 ode to Joy teams that in a big rousing
• 1:32:52
  action film is a crazy choice, but it works so well.
• 1:32:56
  It does, yeah. Cayman works it back into some
• 1:32:58
  of the music pieces as well, if you've noticed, and it adds a
• 1:33:01
  huge touch of glass to everything it.
• 1:33:04
  Does. Works great when it plays.
• 1:33:05
  When the crew finally opened the vault, a fantastic inclusion in
• 1:33:08
  the score and I think an excellent score overall.
• 1:33:11
  Understated, but probably Cayman's best for me.
• 1:33:14
  Right. Oh yeah.
• 1:33:16
  I mean it's neck and neck with Highlander Not being ironic,
• 1:33:20
  Highland scores. Amazing.
• 1:33:21
  You didn't know he wrote everything I do, I Do It For You
• 1:33:23
  by Bryan Adams, right? From Robin Hood, which is
• 1:33:25
  probably one of the greatest songs ever written.
• 1:33:27
  I did not know that he. Co wrote it with Adams, yeah.
• 1:33:30
  Yeah, what I think Caiman does very well here is understand the
• 1:33:32
  brief set out by John Mctennan and Joel Silva.
• 1:33:36
  Kind of the only reason Mctennan took the gig is if you could
• 1:33:38
  take the misery out of the original script and add some fun
• 1:33:40
  to it. And he's helped massively by
• 1:33:43
  Michael Cayman. I think the film's full of
• 1:33:45
  dramatic pieces and classical music, but it's also infused
• 1:33:48
  with light hearted Christmassy cues.
• 1:33:51
  It's not obvious, but there are bells jingling all over the
• 1:33:54
  place. Yeah, yeah, it's probably most
• 1:33:55
  obvious when McLean is up to something mischievous, like when
• 1:33:58
  he decides to strap the gun to his back at the end.
• 1:34:01
  It's a really small detail, but it keeps the tone just right for
• 1:34:05
  me and matches Mctainan's vision perfectly.
• 1:34:08
  Absolutely, yeah. I love all those little touches.
• 1:34:11
  So using all the joy was the idea of John Mctennan.
• 1:34:14
  He'd got it from A Clockwork Orange, obviously, where Kubrick
• 1:34:16
  uses the music to represent Alex.
• 1:34:18
  The largest buildup of violent tendencies at first came and
• 1:34:21
  objected to using it and said it was sacrilege.
• 1:34:25
  He said to Mctennan. I will make mincemeat out of
• 1:34:28
  Wagner or Strauss for you, but please not Braid 1.
• 1:34:33
  Bit harsh, and Vagner and Strauss isn't.
• 1:34:35
  It yeah, it's Vagner and Strauss.
• 1:34:37
  Apparently came and changed his mind when we see him and told
• 1:34:40
  him that Cuba because he was all the joy as well.
• 1:34:42
  And that then gave came in the idea of using singing in the
• 1:34:44
  rain which is also in A Clockwork Orange.
• 1:34:46
  Yeah. And he wrote the melody for that
• 1:34:48
  into the score for Die Hard. Yeah.
• 1:34:49
  You can also hear Winter Wonderland at one point if you
• 1:34:51
  listen carefully. Right.
• 1:34:53
  Great work with the music on Die Hard then not bother.
• 1:34:56
  All from Ludwig Van and Michael Cayman.
• 1:34:59
  One of his best scores. Absolutely, yeah.
• 1:35:01
  If you listen, if you listen hard for it, it's definitely
• 1:35:03
  there. Another key collaboration that
• 1:35:07
  John Mctiernan was part of on Die Hard was the one with his
• 1:35:09
  director of photography Yan De Bond.
• 1:35:12
  Yeah, Big Yan. A Dutch cinematographer with a
• 1:35:14
  movie career going back to 1971, De Bond had worked several times
• 1:35:18
  with Paul Verhoeven, and his most well known Hollywood work
• 1:35:20
  at the time of Die Hard had been Cujo, All The Right Moves and
• 1:35:24
  The Jewel of the Nile. Yeah, not too much the
• 1:35:27
  animation. The obvious choice for Die Hard.
• 1:35:28
  Not really. How's his work yet, though?
• 1:35:31
  I think it's wonderful. I think he's hand in hand with
• 1:35:33
  Mctennan and he's exactly what Mcteon needs.
• 1:35:37
  And the wonderful thing is, I think Yande Von's learning more
• 1:35:40
  from Mcteon and then he's actually learned from Yande
• 1:35:43
  Bond. I mean to go on from this and to
• 1:35:44
  make Speed and Twister and to direct both of them films, two
• 1:35:47
  huge action films in the 90s, massive, you know, very, very
• 1:35:51
  recognizable style. And I think he's borrowed a lot.
• 1:35:54
  The borrowed a lot from each other.
• 1:35:56
  But I think it's the classical use of visual storytelling.
• 1:35:58
  It's very classically short. It's very static action.
• 1:36:01
  There's not a lot of like handheld documentary born style
• 1:36:04
  stuff in here. There wasn't at the time anyway.
• 1:36:06
  But I think when the camera moves, it moves for a reason, as
• 1:36:09
  it always should. The use of close-ups is
• 1:36:11
  absolutely perfect. The lighting of the whole thing
• 1:36:13
  is timeless. It's just timeless.
• 1:36:15
  It doesn't look like an 80s film at all.
• 1:36:17
  It just looks like an action film of the time and it's just
• 1:36:21
  it really, really works and it's for me, I think it's just
• 1:36:24
  beautifully done from start to finish.
• 1:36:25
  It's got this consistently beautiful look to it and it
• 1:36:29
  consistently brilliant and very, very confident tone in Yandebrun
• 1:36:34
  definitely brings us. Yeah, I think when you watch Die
• 1:36:37
  Hard today, it is well and just about everywhere and nowhere
• 1:36:40
  more than individuals. I mean, 99% of the movie is shot
• 1:36:44
  like in an 80s office block, functional room layouts, A beige
• 1:36:48
  color palette. But not for a single second does
• 1:36:50
  Die Hard look boring. Never.
• 1:36:52
  And I think they achieve that in a few ways.
• 1:36:54
  Firstly, I think the F out of the MO Tienen and De Bond have
• 1:36:57
  gone to in terms of composition and blocking is obvious from
• 1:37:01
  start to finish. Every shot is like perfectly
• 1:37:03
  composed and particularly blocked.
• 1:37:05
  Yeah, very much. Also the way the camera moves.
• 1:37:08
  The Bond said that he wanted the camera to be a floating
• 1:37:10
  bystander and you can see that, lots of slow pond left and
• 1:37:13
  right, loads of whip pans, lots of zooms in the character
• 1:37:16
  reactions. It makes every moment like
• 1:37:18
  really dynamic. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:37:20
  And we should mention the editing as well, which was hand
• 1:37:22
  in hand with the visuals. The editors were Frank J, Uri
• 1:37:25
  Austin, John F Link, and their work I think is incredible.
• 1:37:28
  The pacing of the film is just perfect.
• 1:37:30
  Yeah, Franding at times is but never confusing.
• 1:37:33
  So yeah, there's some genuinely great filmmaking craft here
• 1:37:36
  which Die Hard maybe doesn't always get the credit for, and
• 1:37:39
  Yander Bond, I think, is integral to that.
• 1:37:41
  Yeah, the way he moves the camera.
• 1:37:42
  I mean, when Holly sees the kids on the TV, the way he moves that
• 1:37:45
  camera into. Yeah, and he just zooms into the
• 1:37:48
  hall. It's amazing.
• 1:37:49
  Fucking. Unreal.
• 1:37:50
  Yeah, brilliant. That's like a roller coaster
• 1:37:52
  ride, the whole thing. I think it's an incredibly shot
• 1:37:55
  film. Yande Bond deserves so much
• 1:37:57
  credit and like you said, John, credit that I don't think he or
• 1:38:00
  the film gets. He captures the action sequences
• 1:38:03
  in a way that you feel like you're there.
• 1:38:05
  The camera holds so long on that C4 fireball blast that it could
• 1:38:09
  take your eyebrows off, Dutch angles all over the place to
• 1:38:12
  disorientate. And the shootout scene, like you
• 1:38:14
  were saying, Westy. It's almost intimate in a way.
• 1:38:17
  You can feel that kind of glass in Mclean's feet and the
• 1:38:20
  terrifying fear of being dragged out of the window by that fire
• 1:38:23
  hose at the end, because we're in amongst the blood and the
• 1:38:26
  sweat on Mclean's face. And that scene where McLean is
• 1:38:29
  at the top of the elevator at just after the ho ho ho bit.
• 1:38:33
  I mean, that's just a moving elevator, but it's so goddamn
• 1:38:36
  exciting because you're right in the thick of it.
• 1:38:39
  His point of view through there, when he's writing, the names on
• 1:38:41
  his hand as well at that point of view, shots are wonderful.
• 1:38:43
  Yeah, amazing work. And that camera just moves in
• 1:38:47
  every scene. It moves.
• 1:38:48
  Glides, does it glides. There used to be rules in the
• 1:38:51
  industry about not being able to cut a shot when the camera is
• 1:38:55
  moving. For the first half of the film,
• 1:38:56
  Mctain and was shooting two different speeds of the same
• 1:38:59
  shot, so it could be edited right?
• 1:39:01
  But he abandoned it later on, having gained a lot of
• 1:39:03
  confidence in his own sense of time.
• 1:39:05
  Yeah, quite right. That sense of movement is just
• 1:39:08
  brilliant. I think one of my favorite
• 1:39:09
  things about the film when I watch it now is how well shot it
• 1:39:12
  all is. Yeah, I agree.
• 1:39:14
  No big award recognition for Yanda Bond for his work on Die
• 1:39:17
  Hard, but yet, as I mentioned, Frankie Urias and John F Link
• 1:39:20
  were Oscar nominated. Right.
• 1:39:22
  Yeah, they lost out to Arthur Schmidt for Who Framed Roger
• 1:39:25
  Rabbit, which is also a good winner.
• 1:39:27
  Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, understandable.
• 1:39:30
  So great talents all across the board on Die Hard and in those
• 1:39:33
  names we mentioned there Jeb Stewart, Stephen EDA, Sauza,
• 1:39:36
  Michael came in, Yanda Bond, Frankie Urios and John F Link.
• 1:39:40
  Some people who brought some huge work to the film.
• 1:39:42
  Yeah, some of the best work. Massive.
• 1:39:45
  And Beethoven? Let's not forget him.
• 1:39:46
  Obviously never forget him the. End.
• 1:39:55
  Mike Tienen keeps on turning the screw when the third active Die
• 1:39:58
  Hard is full of even more gunfire and even more
• 1:40:00
  explosions. Of course it is.
• 1:40:02
  The climax and final showdown between McLean and Hans is
• 1:40:05
  coming, but first we've got a roof to blow up.
• 1:40:08
  We do. Wanted to find out why Hans was
• 1:40:11
  on the roof. McLean heads up there and ends
• 1:40:12
  up in a fist fight to the death with Carl.
• 1:40:15
  At the same time, with Dwayne handling things about as badly
• 1:40:18
  as it's possible to, he finds himself usurping the pecking
• 1:40:21
  order. There's a new plan involving
• 1:40:23
  helicopters, the hostages, and the FBI.
• 1:40:27
  Nice. Lovely.
• 1:40:28
  You want the miracles I give you Westy?
• 1:40:32
  Just like fucking Saigon. He's like housing, junior high
• 1:40:36
  dickhead, fucking brilliant love outfit.
• 1:40:39
  I love these guys. I love how gung ho they are.
• 1:40:42
  It's fucking hilarious. It's like, this is just at
• 1:40:47
  another level of 10 because you're fucking really don't like
• 1:40:51
  these two. I mean, especially Agent
• 1:40:53
  Johnson. I don't really like him.
• 1:40:54
  Agent Johnson's all right, no relation.
• 1:40:57
  But it's great when he's like, I'm in charge here.
• 1:40:59
  Not anymore. That's a great moment.
• 1:41:03
  And then John gets on the roof and this is kind of his arc
• 1:41:05
  where he's turned and he respects Holly's position and he
• 1:41:09
  calls a Holly Gennaro. Where's Holly Gennaro?
• 1:41:12
  And she's in the vault, is like, where is the vault?
• 1:41:14
  And it's like the first time. He's not looking at the women
• 1:41:16
  who are next to him. But it's just great when he
• 1:41:18
  stands, they're not listening to him and he starts just shooting
• 1:41:20
  on the roof. I'd love to do that.
• 1:41:22
  I've looked up that much confidence and just know that
• 1:41:25
  I'm fucking right. And there's a big group of
• 1:41:27
  people on the like just fucking they're going to blow the whole
• 1:41:29
  thing and they're like not listen fucking fucking great.
• 1:41:34
  But when he's like wrapping that fire hose round and there's that
• 1:41:38
  shot, you know the shot I'm talking about when he leaves
• 1:41:40
  that rooftop and it blows up behind him, how the fucking did
• 1:41:44
  that. It's so fucking what a shot that
• 1:41:48
  is and you're just like you've got my left and the whole
• 1:41:52
  fucking it's fucking exploding behind.
• 1:41:53
  What the fuck did to do that? And I am literally breathless
• 1:41:57
  even talking about this sequence.
• 1:41:58
  I'm still excited about it. It's just absolutely wonderful
• 1:42:02
  from start to finish. It is.
• 1:42:04
  It is a great sequence. I mean, the two FBI agents had
• 1:42:06
  turned up. There were a couple of Johnsons.
• 1:42:08
  All right. Yeah.
• 1:42:11
  How is it that the two beat cops in McLean and Powell no more
• 1:42:14
  than the deputy chief of police, The SWAT team on the FBI?
• 1:42:17
  Yeah, feeling upwards, All these guys.
• 1:42:19
  Yeah, it's just allegory of the American government, isn't it?
• 1:42:21
  I think the higher you go, the less you.
• 1:42:23
  Know the establishment, isn't it?
• 1:42:24
  Oh, definitely, yeah. But those shots of the
• 1:42:26
  helicopters, like, swooping down the Avenue of the Stars in LA,
• 1:42:29
  are outstanding. Yeah.
• 1:42:31
  God. That's so exciting.
• 1:42:33
  I know that the point where the helicopter swoops it on the
• 1:42:35
  roof, the LAPD told Joel Silva. They couldn't get too low for
• 1:42:38
  safety reasons. And, Silva said, Oh yes, of
• 1:42:40
  course, absolutely to the police.
• 1:42:42
  Land on it. And then told the pilots getting
• 1:42:44
  as low as you can, yeah. They said it's fine.
• 1:42:48
  And the way it all builds up is brilliantly written and then
• 1:42:50
  brilliantly executed by Mctee. And then specifically the bit
• 1:42:53
  where McLean jumps off the roof with the fire hose around his
• 1:42:55
  waist, jumps off and survives a fall, but finds himself trapped
• 1:42:59
  outside the building. So he shoots the window out and
• 1:43:01
  makes it through, but he's almost killed when the fire hose
• 1:43:03
  falls and it nearly drags around the window.
• 1:43:05
  He's just danger after danger. Yeah, it's great.
• 1:43:08
  Also saw an interview with Steven Need a Souser where he
• 1:43:10
  said that McLean using the fire hose was not the Harold Lloyd
• 1:43:14
  who also jumped off a roof tied to a fire hose in safety last
• 1:43:16
  the silent comedy right from 1923.
• 1:43:19
  OK, all the years classics inspired by that scene in safety
• 1:43:22
  last Yeah yeah yeah, the clock teller seen it.
• 1:43:24
  Back to the Future as. Well, yeah.
• 1:43:26
  Yeah. But this is just a master class
• 1:43:27
  and how to write and then shoot an action scene.
• 1:43:30
  Brilliant stuff. Yeah, it's amazing.
• 1:43:32
  And Yanda Bonded, estimated the helicopter sequence would take
• 1:43:34
  three nights of shooting to get everything they needed.
• 1:43:37
  After months of negotiations, the authorities agreed to allow
• 1:43:40
  it. But after they received a lot of
• 1:43:41
  complaints, the city told Mctain and that could only give them
• 1:43:44
  two hours one Sunday night to shoot it all.
• 1:43:47
  Wow, wow. The Bond and Mateen and planned
• 1:43:49
  it meticulously to be able to get everything in one hour.
• 1:43:52
  But after the first take, the police said this is far too
• 1:43:55
  dangerous and shut it down. So they ended up shooting the
• 1:43:57
  whole sequence in 30 minutes. Jesus Christ.
• 1:44:02
  Yeah, you can't blame the police.
• 1:44:03
  To be fair, those shots of the helicopters are crazy.
• 1:44:06
  They're unbelievable. But it must have just been one
• 1:44:08
  pass. That must have just been one
• 1:44:09
  pass, yeah? It was one take, yeah, yeah.
• 1:44:11
  I mean, they're not taking it easy, the storming down there,
• 1:44:14
  yeah, but the moment as well, after hand blows the roof and
• 1:44:17
  the blast takes the helicopter down, that shot of the
• 1:44:19
  helicopter has a ball of flame. Yeah, tumbling down the
• 1:44:22
  building. That's a miniature.
• 1:44:23
  Oh my God, it was done by Boss Studios, Richard Edlund's
• 1:44:25
  company. Yeah, it looks totally real.
• 1:44:27
  Absolutely. It does looks brilliant.
• 1:44:28
  The sound design on that as well totally buys into it.
• 1:44:30
  Yeah, brilliant. Yeah.
• 1:44:32
  And the Agents Johnson were played by Robert Davy and Grand
• 1:44:35
  Bush. There's a line in the helicopter
• 1:44:37
  where you masterfully said it, where Steve Davis Johnson says
• 1:44:40
  it's just like a fucking Saigon a slick and bushes, Johnson
• 1:44:44
  said. I was in junior high dickhead
• 1:44:46
  that line wasn't in the script and maintain and told Bush just
• 1:44:49
  to say it before they shot. And he said when I said that
• 1:44:52
  line, the look of dismay on Davies face was solid gold,
• 1:44:55
  Dave. He never broke character for
• 1:44:57
  anyone and McCain and loved every second of it.
• 1:44:59
  And Saigon was a fucking disaster, wasn't it?
• 1:45:02
  For the for the had to pull out a Saigon.
• 1:45:05
  It's like nothing to celebrate at all.
• 1:45:07
  Yeah, And he's clearly about 25. There's no waves in Vietnam.
• 1:45:11
  His first time in a helicopter? Absolutely.
• 1:45:13
  Yeah, I was in junior high. Yeah, there was a lot of prep.
• 1:45:18
  Went into the moment McLean leaps from the building.
• 1:45:20
  My favorite shot stuntman Ken Bates did the jump, which is
• 1:45:24
  amazing because he just wouldn't did not think it was a stone man
• 1:45:26
  at all. He was on wires and a
• 1:45:28
  decelerator allowed him to freefall.
• 1:45:30
  The moment where McLean first leaps off the roof was performed
• 1:45:33
  by Willis on a car park rooftop. The roof was rigged with mortars
• 1:45:36
  and Willis back was padded and his skin was covered in
• 1:45:39
  protective gel to absorb the heat.
• 1:45:41
  Wow. The jump was 25 feet down to the
• 1:45:43
  bottom where he landed on Airbag and Joel Silver and Mcteon and
• 1:45:46
  did the jump first to show how safe it was.
• 1:45:48
  Joel Silver did it. Fucking Allah, begs the airbag.
• 1:45:55
  The blast from the mortars pushed Willis to the far edge of
• 1:45:57
  the airbag, and he just just made it.
• 1:46:00
  Sounds dangerous as hell. Oh, this is so dangerous.
• 1:46:03
  Silver I've done this on Lethal Weapon.
• 1:46:05
  It's easy. Yeah, yeah, it is very much like
• 1:46:07
  that. But I'd have loved it if Willis
• 1:46:09
  had refused to do it and had no choice but to use the shot of
• 1:46:11
  Joel Silva. It's like.
• 1:46:14
  Down. Roll them off the top with the
• 1:46:17
  Cigardies boat. Well, during this helicopter
• 1:46:21
  sequence, like I said before, it's intercut with McLean
• 1:46:25
  fighting Carl. Yeah, And I think it's perfectly
• 1:46:27
  set up because John is on the hunt for what Hans was doing on
• 1:46:30
  the roof. Yeah.
• 1:46:31
  What the hell were you doing? And he finds out, but he can't
• 1:46:34
  get his message through to Al because he gets Carl's gun
• 1:46:37
  barrel in the face. Great storytelling.
• 1:46:40
  And by this point Mclean's completely out on his feet and
• 1:46:43
  you would think that he was no match for Carl.
• 1:46:46
  But he breaks into this feral animal with these rapid fire
• 1:46:49
  punches and he throws a few hurtful comments in there as
• 1:46:53
  well about when he killed his brother, which I mean he's taken
• 1:46:56
  the credit for. But let's be honest, it was an
• 1:46:59
  accident. I snapped his fucking neck.
• 1:47:01
  You know, bits of dialogue are really strange.
• 1:47:04
  I'm going to fucking kill you. I'm going to cook you.
• 1:47:05
  I'm going to eat you. I believe you.
• 1:47:07
  Say Yeah, it's outrageous. Crazy, really Oddly out of place
• 1:47:11
  that in this moment of ultimate upheaval, he's talking about
• 1:47:14
  putting them in the oven. And what's he talking about to
• 1:47:17
  be strange? Yeah, those lines must have been
• 1:47:19
  improvised by Willis. That wasn't in the screen most.
• 1:47:21
  Really. Yeah, definitely not the moment.
• 1:47:24
  And I do like Carl's moves during this fight.
• 1:47:26
  Those balletic flying kicks are a standout.
• 1:47:28
  Yeah, brilliant. What I really love is when
• 1:47:30
  McLean finally offs him, which is really satisfying the chain
• 1:47:33
  around his neck. McLean doesn't have any time to
• 1:47:36
  admire his handiwork or catch his breath.
• 1:47:38
  He checks his clip and he's out of there because he knows the
• 1:47:41
  roof is going to blow. A fight scene that doesn't
• 1:47:43
  outstay. It's welcome and it's full of
• 1:47:44
  energy. I absolutely.
• 1:47:45
  His background in ballet comes and shines through on this
• 1:47:48
  sequence, doesn't it? Of course it does.
• 1:47:49
  Oh, massively. Yeah.
• 1:47:50
  Beautiful. Yeah, it's great.
• 1:47:52
  I mean, this is where we get the pay off of McLean killing Carl's
• 1:47:54
  brother An hour and a half failure.
• 1:47:56
  Yeah, lesser action film wouldn't have added that
• 1:47:58
  character detail than just had Carl want to fight McLean, but
• 1:48:01
  the character drama behind it makes it much better,
• 1:48:03
  Definitely. It's emotionally charged, isn't
• 1:48:05
  it? Definitely.
• 1:48:06
  And Alex, I'm like, God, you know who plays.
• 1:48:07
  Carl is excellent. A big, graceful brute of a man.
• 1:48:11
  Yeah, he's wonderful. And I know that Mutianan said
• 1:48:13
  that he wanted the fight to feel, not choreographed.
• 1:48:15
  And he said I wanted him messy, like a fight in the 6th grade
• 1:48:18
  schoolyard. Yeah.
• 1:48:19
  So yeah, you know, someone being hung by a chain at the end of
• 1:48:22
  it, yeah. So in school, Willis's punches
• 1:48:26
  to that stomach when he says bam, bam, bam bam bam, yeah,
• 1:48:29
  brilliant. Alexander Goodenough was known
• 1:48:32
  as a obviously a world famous Russian ballet dancer at the
• 1:48:34
  time and and it was Jackie Birch's ID to cast him.
• 1:48:38
  He declined at first, so Joel Silver set up a meeting and
• 1:48:40
  convinced him to do. Obviously threatened to kill
• 1:48:44
  him. Getting involved all the time.
• 1:48:48
  To be fair, we laugh about Silva, but he's some producer.
• 1:48:50
  He. Fucking is.
• 1:48:51
  He's amazing. He gets the job.
• 1:48:53
  Done. Absolutely, 100%.
• 1:48:55
  Jeb Stewart met with him as well, and he said that good
• 1:48:57
  enough walked into Fox Plaza and people came to their windows to
• 1:49:01
  watch him walk in. He said he was just a perfect
• 1:49:04
  physical specimen and when he was coming to see him, Stuart
• 1:49:08
  assumed that he wanted to talk about adding dialogue.
• 1:49:11
  But good enough shouted. No, no, no.
• 1:49:13
  I want to take some lines away because he struggled with the
• 1:49:15
  English language and he only agreed to the role if some lines
• 1:49:18
  were cut. Yeah, sounds like Arnold only
• 1:49:23
  got, you know, probably didn't cost $45 million or whatever his
• 1:49:25
  grade was at the time. Definitely not, no.
• 1:49:28
  It's strange as well because he's in the money pit.
• 1:49:31
  He is wonderful in that. Hilarious.
• 1:49:33
  He's got good comic timing in that, really.
• 1:49:35
  Great. And witness as well.
• 1:49:37
  Very, very good. While doing this, he said that
• 1:49:39
  he immediately felt comfortable holding a gun, which made him
• 1:49:42
  feel uncomfortable, right? I think it looks great, just as
• 1:49:45
  a visual presence looks fantastic in the film.
• 1:49:47
  I want blood fucking yes. One of the last things written
• 1:49:52
  for the film was when the Sauza came up with how Hans and his
• 1:49:55
  crew were planning to escape the Nakatomi.
• 1:49:57
  Sauza had written ATV movie called Spirit where the villain
• 1:50:00
  planned to blow up the Children's Hospital.
• 1:50:02
  Then, escaping a fake ambulance, he recycled the idea for the end
• 1:50:05
  of Die Hard Great. Yeah, but then the first
• 1:50:07
  screening for the executives of Fox, this I was said that he
• 1:50:10
  realized immediately there was an issue because when we see
• 1:50:12
  Hans and the lodge disembark the truck at the start, we see
• 1:50:16
  inside and there's no ambulance. Yeah, yeah, this I was.
• 1:50:19
  I said that he started coming up with ideas, but my Tianan said
• 1:50:22
  if the audience is 2 hours ago, I looked in the back of that
• 1:50:25
  truck and didn't see an ambulance.
• 1:50:26
  I don't care. Which is fair enough.
• 1:50:28
  You. Don't care.
• 1:50:30
  No it. Doesn't bother me at all.
• 1:50:31
  Not at. All.
• 1:50:33
  Some huge moments there. Then a few more terrorists are
• 1:50:36
  gone. Carl is gone.
• 1:50:37
  Or is he? And Wiggler needs some more FBI
• 1:50:40
  guys, I guess. Yeah, I guess.
• 1:50:45
  From there, McLean heads back upstairs for the final showdown.
• 1:50:48
  Hans has Holly captive and Eddie with the cowboy boots are still
• 1:50:51
  hanging around for some reason. Yeah, the climax of Die Hard
• 1:50:55
  brings us Carl's return from the dead, the completion of Powers
• 1:50:58
  Arc, and one of the most famous villains deaths in 1980s
• 1:51:01
  Hollywood. The final scene to SD Yeah, how
• 1:51:04
  does it go? You know, it goes really well,
• 1:51:06
  doesn't it? It's pays off fucking
• 1:51:08
  beautifully. What an end.
• 1:51:09
  And this is the final showdown with Hans is exactly how you
• 1:51:12
  want him to look when he's walking down.
• 1:51:13
  That what I criticized in the Casino Royal podcast was that
• 1:51:17
  three cut close up is bang very. It was actually gamble.
• 1:51:21
  That makes sense. But here it is again on the
• 1:51:22
  tapes. Bang, Bang, bang.
• 1:51:24
  It's there, OK? And I kind of don't like that
• 1:51:27
  normally, but I forgot and love it here.
• 1:51:32
  This is that little musical Jingle and it's just, it's
• 1:51:34
  Christmas and it's a Christmas tape.
• 1:51:35
  He's looking at it. It's just really, really great.
• 1:51:38
  The music's very, very recognizable here.
• 1:51:40
  You can hear it all the way through.
• 1:51:42
  It builds the tension wonderfully.
• 1:51:44
  But are we going to talk about the elephant in the room?
• 1:51:46
  Or we're going to talk about how the fuck does he stick that gun
• 1:51:50
  to his sweaty, dirty back? With Christmas tape, I had a
• 1:51:55
  feeling. You bring this up.
• 1:51:58
  And more importantly, do we give a shit?
• 1:52:01
  I mean, I don't really care, but it's impossible.
• 1:52:06
  You've fried. Haven't you I've.
• 1:52:09
  Rolled around in the garden. I've killed 4 terrorists and
• 1:52:11
  tried to stick going to be back. It didn't work, but maybe it's
• 1:52:15
  not going to stick physically, but it sticks emotionally, so
• 1:52:17
  that's why that really works for me.
• 1:52:19
  And when Hans goes out, dates, safe trail times, Bang, Bang,
• 1:52:22
  and he kind of forgets about Holly for a split second.
• 1:52:25
  He's so mature for. Themselves basking in the.
• 1:52:27
  Morning. Oh, yes.
• 1:52:28
  Yeah, they are fucking. Yes.
• 1:52:30
  This is good. And then he's oh shit he does.
• 1:52:33
  When he cuts to the outside of the building and you get that
• 1:52:35
  last line. That should not be funny, but it
• 1:52:38
  is. I hope that's not a hostage, but
• 1:52:40
  the way that guy comes down is how great shot.
• 1:52:43
  What a sequence. What a way to end it.
• 1:52:45
  What a way to take the bad guy out.
• 1:52:46
  What a fucking film. Yeah, I think it's a great way
• 1:52:50
  for handles to go as well. What works, and this I think is
• 1:52:53
  something more modern Gloop Buster should take from, is that
• 1:52:56
  after all the huge spectacle, helicopter crashes, the roof
• 1:52:59
  blowing up, the last confrontation between the hero
• 1:53:01
  and the villain is small and intimate.
• 1:53:03
  Yeah, McLean outwits hands with the gun on his back, and the way
• 1:53:06
  they tie it back into Christmas with the wrapping paper tape is
• 1:53:09
  really good. Also really good how it ties
• 1:53:11
  back into the cowboy theme we've had all the way through.
• 1:53:13
  John Wayne. Gary Cooper, Trace Kelly get a
• 1:53:16
  mention. McLean outdraws Hans and Eddie
• 1:53:18
  and then blows the smoke off his gun gun Slinger style.
• 1:53:21
  And I love how it's literally Mclean's last two bullets.
• 1:53:24
  He's flying by the seat of his pants all the way through the
• 1:53:26
  film and it's the same here. And something people might not
• 1:53:29
  be aware of. Mclean's final line to hands
• 1:53:31
  after the shootout? Happy trails Hands.
• 1:53:33
  Happy Trails with another song by Roy Rogers.
• 1:53:35
  Nice. Great.
• 1:53:37
  And only Alan Rickman. His hands groove.
• 1:53:39
  I could say yippee Kaye motherfucker and have everyone
• 1:53:42
  laugh their heads off for 20 seconds.
• 1:53:47
  Brilliant. Finale.
• 1:53:48
  Great. Yeah.
• 1:53:49
  I like the moment when Hans is dangling off the building for a
• 1:53:52
  few reasons. Firstly, it's his truly menacing
• 1:53:56
  face when he turns from a side profile bearing his teeth.
• 1:54:00
  Brilliant. I think that Bonnie Bedelia
• 1:54:02
  really sells her terror. She's screaming and wailing as
• 1:54:06
  if her life depended on it, which of course it does.
• 1:54:08
  And the look on Hans face is priceless.
• 1:54:10
  When McLean unclasps that Rolex, the symbol of it is greed being
• 1:54:15
  discarded, which works on Hans's level and John and Holly's
• 1:54:19
  level. Just wonderful, wonderful.
• 1:54:21
  And finally, I like that Hans has come up and comes as a
• 1:54:24
  result of Holly and John working as a team, the only people who
• 1:54:27
  Hans has already identified as a threat to his fans.
• 1:54:30
  Yeah, love that. Mctean wanted to get the famous
• 1:54:34
  close up shot of hands as he falls, so wanted Alan Rickman to
• 1:54:37
  perform the fall himself. Rickman had to go through stunt
• 1:54:40
  training to learn how to fall backwards safely.
• 1:54:43
  It was the last shot they got and Rickman said they'll make
• 1:54:45
  sure you've got it all in the can before they do the shot
• 1:54:48
  where they might kill you. Brilliant.
• 1:54:53
  And you've got the film, so let's kill him now.
• 1:54:56
  Yeah, and the show, see if it was and again, did it first,
• 1:54:59
  right? He loves it.
• 1:55:01
  Not your Silver this time though.
• 1:55:02
  I mean, this is where you want the shot.
• 1:55:04
  Silver close upon him instead. Yeah.
• 1:55:08
  But when Rickman came to do the stunt, he was told they would
• 1:55:10
  drop him on the count of three, but then they dropped him on one
• 1:55:13
  or two. So the look of shocking hands,
• 1:55:14
  eyes was real. Yeah, it was quite innovative
• 1:55:17
  too, but shot. Because Rickman was falling away
• 1:55:19
  from the camera, it was hard to keep him in focus.
• 1:55:21
  So Yander Bond had a system designed where computer would
• 1:55:23
  automatically change the camera focus, which is pretty smart.
• 1:55:27
  That's unbelievable. Yeah, it was done against the
• 1:55:29
  blue screen and then they composited that under the top of
• 1:55:31
  the shot taken from the upper floors of Fox Plaza still stands
• 1:55:34
  up. That shot.
• 1:55:35
  I think it was really. Good, he does.
• 1:55:37
  Classic. And that wide shot we get of
• 1:55:39
  Hans's body fall under the ground was can be it's up to his
• 1:55:42
  old tricks again. The stuntman?
• 1:55:44
  He dropped from 318 feet from the top of Fox Plaza without a
• 1:55:47
  scratch. Blame me.
• 1:55:49
  I always assumed that was a model, not a real person.
• 1:55:52
  That's definitely a real person. Like, yeah, yeah, percent.
• 1:55:55
  I bet. Still, if I didn't volunteer, I
• 1:55:56
  do that one. No way.
• 1:55:59
  We still be scraping off the ground, yeah.
• 1:56:01
  Another thing that is I was a brought to the script was that
• 1:56:03
  he increased the size of Hans's crew.
• 1:56:06
  He brought in newly played by Al Young and also Eddie played by
• 1:56:09
  Dennis Hayden, who makes it in this scene.
• 1:56:13
  Eddie was supposed to be the first person killed, but he had
• 1:56:15
  the chance meeting with just as a sister-in-law, Bobby Marcus.
• 1:56:18
  She was a publicist and Hayden said if you can get Stephen to
• 1:56:21
  write me until the end, I'll hire you as my publicist.
• 1:56:24
  Brilliant. Brilliant.
• 1:56:27
  Job for the boys and girls, by the sounds of it, yeah.
• 1:56:29
  Yeah. That does explain it though,
• 1:56:31
  because every time in this scene I'm like, why is this guy still
• 1:56:34
  here? Yeah, I.
• 1:56:35
  Know I know he's done nothing. And to wrap it all up, I want to
• 1:56:40
  talk about the moment where Powell wipes Karl good and bad
• 1:56:44
  in this scene. For me, to be honest, yeah, it's
• 1:56:47
  a glorious moment when McLean and Powell are together at last.
• 1:56:51
  The blow up of music, a laugh and a warm embrace.
• 1:56:54
  And it ties up both Mclean's relationship with Powell and
• 1:56:57
  with Holly in one sentence. This is my wife, Holly Gennaro.
• 1:57:01
  Holly McLean. That's great.
• 1:57:03
  Lean right? And that excellent.
• 1:57:05
  But then you get the bit where Karl comes from nowhere.
• 1:57:08
  The Lethal Weapon rip off. Probably the only part in the
• 1:57:12
  film that really brings it down for me, really, because Powell
• 1:57:15
  plugs Karl multiple times. It just doesn't seem to make
• 1:57:19
  sense and I think there's a couple of reasons for that.
• 1:57:21
  Firstly, the ineptitude of those guys clearing the crime scene.
• 1:57:24
  Shall we check if the massive blonde is dead before we put him
• 1:57:27
  in a body bag? Don't bother, just get him in
• 1:57:29
  there. Yeah, it's just there to serve
• 1:57:32
  the plot and a complete Powell's arc.
• 1:57:35
  And on that. I mean, what is the film saying?
• 1:57:37
  Guns are good? Because Powell has already said
• 1:57:40
  that he's never been able to draw his gun on anyone again.
• 1:57:43
  Now he's conquered that lifelong fear.
• 1:57:45
  He can blow away people with impunity now and just don't get
• 1:57:48
  it. Doesn't sit right for me.
• 1:57:50
  Unlike the one in Lethal Weapon, which really.
• 1:57:53
  Does I agree? I think Powell's arguing that he
• 1:57:55
  learns how to start blowing people away again is dubious, to
• 1:57:58
  say the least. I mean ethically mainly, but
• 1:58:01
  also in the US shooting, you know, no, I'm kid, you'd
• 1:58:03
  probably get promoted for that. That shot we get though, the
• 1:58:07
  close up on Powell's smoking pistol and then the focus pull
• 1:58:10
  on the Powell's face. That is a great shot.
• 1:58:12
  And that music? Swell.
• 1:58:13
  Beautiful. Yeah.
• 1:58:14
  It is brilliant. It's.
• 1:58:15
  Brilliantly executed. I'm just not sure about it
• 1:58:17
  narratively. Or morally.
• 1:58:20
  And morally? But it's fantastic when
• 1:58:22
  Thornburg gets popped in the top.
• 1:58:24
  Great punch. Did you get there?
• 1:58:28
  The day before they were due to shoot the final scene, Michael
• 1:58:30
  Cayman sent the music under the arrangement of Order Joy.
• 1:58:34
  When Joel Silva heard it, he didn't like it, so they went
• 1:58:37
  with the temp music. They've been using a mixture of
• 1:58:39
  pieces from Cocoon, Man on Fire and Aliens.
• 1:58:41
  Yeah, you can hear the aliens music time.
• 1:58:44
  You can, yeah. And then the out of the Let It
• 1:58:46
  Snow by Vaughan Munro at the end.
• 1:58:47
  Much to Cayman's fury, I'd imagine.
• 1:58:50
  I mean, let's know, it's great. It's a shame they couldn't get
• 1:58:52
  all the joy to work, though. I mean, it would have been more
• 1:58:54
  sense than Cocoon, obviously. Yeah, I think they were saying.
• 1:58:58
  Because all the joy was kind of like the theme for the bad guys,
• 1:59:02
  and the bad guys are no longer. Yeah, it makes sense, Yeah.
• 1:59:04
  And we're at the end of Die Hard.
• 1:59:06
  The bad guys are defeated, Hans is dead, McLean and Holly
• 1:59:09
  reunited, and Powell turned into a trigger.
• 1:59:11
  Happy Lunatic. Yes.
• 1:59:13
  The true meaning of Christmas, Joe Silver style.
• 1:59:16
  Absolutely. Yeah, of course.
• 1:59:22
  Reception and award. Diehard did big things on it.
• 1:59:27
  Released in July 1988 on a budget of 25 to $35 million.
• 1:59:31
  It grossed about 140 million. And I said very well for itself
• 1:59:36
  before it did come out. The studio were delighted with
• 1:59:38
  it, but Bruce Willis won the unbiased opinion, so he arranged
• 1:59:41
  for a screening for Glenn Gordon.
• 1:59:42
  Karen, right, who was the creator of Moonlighting.
• 1:59:44
  All right, he rang with us up off.
• 1:59:46
  We'd seen it and said holy mackerel man, that's a movie.
• 1:59:50
  Not ATV show, yeah. Exactly.
• 1:59:52
  You're a fan of mackerel. What's the on you?
• 1:59:54
  Big fan, Brayan food, Oily fish. Fox was delighted with the
• 1:59:58
  finished film. I mean naturally.
• 2:00:00
  But they still weren't totally convinced on Bruce Willis's
• 2:00:03
  ability to fill a movie theatre. Being ATV actor and all.
• 2:00:06
  I mean, they've given him the money, they've shot the film.
• 2:00:09
  It's out idiots. And Stephen E D'souza said that
• 2:00:14
  when Die Hard trailers came out, some audiences laughed when they
• 2:00:17
  saw Willis in the lead. Right.
• 2:00:18
  So a month before the movie was released, Fox had new posters
• 2:00:22
  designed where Willis's face was removed entirely.
• 2:00:25
  Then when the film came out and it was a big hit, they put the
• 2:00:28
  originals back out with Willis on.
• 2:00:29
  Them. Yeah, this was.
• 2:00:31
  I said that the audiences didn't just laugh, he said.
• 2:00:32
  Some of them booed, right, which is outrageous.
• 2:00:36
  And then $5,000,000 get him off the poster.
• 2:00:39
  Ridiculous. That doesn't make.
• 2:00:40
  Sense. As for the critics, let's start
• 2:00:43
  with the old cowboy that is Roy Rogers Ebert.
• 2:00:47
  Brilliant. What did Roger think of Die
• 2:00:49
  Hard? I'm going to go with oh, I'm
• 2:00:52
  going to go with a 2 1/2. 3 1/2. Loose losses.
• 2:00:58
  He pretty much slammed it. He had big problems with the
• 2:01:00
  secondary character and gave it two stars out of four.
• 2:01:04
  Wow, Rog said. Without the deputy chief, Die
• 2:01:07
  Hard would have been a more than possible thriller with him.
• 2:01:10
  It's a mess. And that's a shame because the
• 2:01:12
  film does contain superior special effects, impressive
• 2:01:15
  stunt work and good performances, especially by
• 2:01:17
  Rickman. So Ebet laying all the blame at
• 2:01:21
  Paul Gleason's door there. He's only about sixteens.
• 2:01:23
  Yeah, exactly. I.
• 2:01:24
  Know he doesn't know what he's talking about.
• 2:01:26
  Rods, to be honest. Because he gave Roadhouse 3 1/2
• 2:01:30
  stars the next year. Was he?
• 2:01:33
  On about Dave Care of the Chicago Tribune said Die Hard
• 2:01:37
  emulated Alien and RoboCop by developing A humorous and
• 2:01:40
  sentimental design that perfected the action genre.
• 2:01:43
  But in doing so, it lacked the personality of its own.
• 2:01:46
  Right. Alien.
• 2:01:47
  Humorous, yeah. Barrel of laughs.
• 2:01:51
  Pissed myself all the way through that one.
• 2:01:54
  Empire Magazine or the full 5 star treatment obviously.
• 2:01:57
  Of course, naturally. It was a retrospective review
• 2:02:00
  and they said John Mclean's smart mouth New York cop was a
• 2:02:03
  career defining turn, mixing banter action heroics in The
• 2:02:06
  Dirty white vest. A stunning effect, the pinnacle
• 2:02:09
  of the 80s action movie. And if it's not the greatest
• 2:02:11
  action movie ever made, then it's damn close.
• 2:02:15
  Every retrospective review by Empires fucking Five stars,
• 2:02:17
  Yeah. It is, yeah.
• 2:02:19
  Well, you know, in hindsight, it's a closing.
• 2:02:22
  Yeah, 20 years later. Whatever.
• 2:02:24
  I mean, I much prefer review where we can unfairly mock what
• 2:02:27
  they've said decades. Later, Yeah, definitely.
• 2:02:28
  That's pretty much back. On yeah, like Attack of the
• 2:02:30
  clothes or some shit. Yeah on Rotten Tomorrow's Die
• 2:02:35
  Hard has a 94% approval rating from both critics and audiences
• 2:02:39
  and an IMDb. A very nice 8.2 out of 10,
• 2:02:43
  leaving it one place short of Fritz lines.
• 2:02:45
  Metropolis together at last. Yeah, Germany.
• 2:02:48
  Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
• 2:02:50
  At the Oscars, Die Hard was nominated for four, which were
• 2:02:52
  Best Sound for Don J. Baseman, Kevin F Cleary, Richard
• 2:02:55
  Overton and Al Overton Junior. Best Film Editing for Frank G
• 2:02:59
  Rios and John F Link. Best Sound Effects Editing for
• 2:03:02
  Stephen Hunter Flick and Richard Shaw, and Best Visual Effects
• 2:03:05
  for Richard Edlund, Alde Saro, Brent Boards and Thean Morris.
• 2:03:09
  Boss Studios basically all deserved, though I think Bruce
• 2:03:12
  Willis might have had something to say about the best sound
• 2:03:14
  award seeing he's had left him deaf like bears.
• 2:03:17
  Over. Yeah, exactly.
• 2:03:18
  I mean, it was good sound. It's loud enough.
• 2:03:22
  Yeah, so Die Hard was a huge box office hit on its release.
• 2:03:25
  Not massively popular with every critic, but that's changed over
• 2:03:28
  time. And now an action classic.
• 2:03:31
  Absolutely top of the pile. Best in class.
• 2:03:36
  Sequels and influence. With the huge commercial success
• 2:03:41
  of Die Hard, Joel Silva couldn't get a sequel into production
• 2:03:44
  quickly enough. And since the first film they
• 2:03:47
  have been 4 sequels, Die Hard Two directed by Renny Hall and
• 2:03:50
  came in 1990. John Mctiernan returned for Die
• 2:03:53
  Hard with a vengeance in 1995, Len Wiseman Helm, Liv Freya, Die
• 2:03:57
  Hard in 2007, and John Moore directed A Good Day to Die Hard
• 2:04:01
  in 2013. So what do we think of those
• 2:04:04
  sequels, Luke? Yeah, I'm not even going to
• 2:04:06
  mention four and five. Not worth it.
• 2:04:08
  No, not good enough. On the second one, it's a fine
• 2:04:13
  action movie, but it does everything that the first one
• 2:04:16
  avoided. Cheesy one line of gags,
• 2:04:18
  terrible bad guy, four story beats.
• 2:04:21
  Having said all that, I do watch it every year, but it is just a
• 2:04:24
  kind of a bland action. I think the only thing that
• 2:04:26
  brings me back to it is Bruce Willis, John Mcclane.
• 2:04:30
  The third one, though, is a different story.
• 2:04:33
  Great location, obviously. The writing is great.
• 2:04:36
  Mateen and back on board doing what he did in the first one to
• 2:04:39
  great effect. I think Jeremy Irons is an able
• 2:04:42
  bad guy. He's no Alan Rickman, but he
• 2:04:44
  fills the boots decently. He does, and the inclusion of
• 2:04:47
  Sam Jackson and his dynamic with Willis is irresistible.
• 2:04:51
  I think the ending's a bit strange, but it is Head and
• 2:04:54
  shoulders the best sequel for me.
• 2:04:56
  I would, yeah, totally agree with that.
• 2:04:58
  Four and five. I don't even know if I've seen
• 2:05:00
  five. I probably have.
• 2:05:01
  But it's it's it's not that memorable to the point where I
• 2:05:03
  have no idea four and five kind of merge into the same.
• 2:05:06
  I remember the cop car going at the helicopter.
• 2:05:07
  That was all right. Yeah.
• 2:05:09
  That's probably it though. Justin Long's in the fourth
• 2:05:11
  isn't? I thought that.
• 2:05:12
  Prefer it when he's a walrus. The second one I really enjoy
• 2:05:16
  because you can. You can just leave your brain at
• 2:05:18
  the door. Like Luke said, it is a no
• 2:05:19
  brainer. There's hardly any intellect.
• 2:05:21
  Probably the only thing that you think, oh that's clever is
• 2:05:23
  there's blanks in one of the guns and there's live rounds and
• 2:05:26
  another one and that's clearly labeled for the audience.
• 2:05:28
  I don't think this it's just a rainy island flick, isn't it?
• 2:05:30
  It's boom Bang Bang. There's nothing wrong with it,
• 2:05:33
  it's just it's not as elevated as Die Hard.
• 2:05:36
  It's just not at all. But I mean it's I still love it.
• 2:05:38
  I still think it's great. I still think Bruce Willis is is
• 2:05:40
  brilliant in it as McLean. I think he keeps all of the same
• 2:05:43
  beats that he did in the first one.
• 2:05:44
  Vengeance Again, love it. I think it's a great, great
• 2:05:47
  film. So I love two.
• 2:05:48
  I love 3-4 and five can get the fuck.
• 2:05:52
  Back to the first Die Hard, then regarded by many like Empire
• 2:05:55
  magazine as one of, if not the greatest action films ever made.
• 2:05:59
  So what is the film's legacy? How have we seen its influence
• 2:06:02
  since 1988? I mean, every single action film
• 2:06:06
  that's been made since 1988. Has an element of die hard.
• 2:06:10
  Yeah, I think it it just absolutely changed the game.
• 2:06:12
  The way that it showed how movie villains should be written.
• 2:06:16
  It showed how characters in action films can be written, not
• 2:06:20
  necessarily should, but also just all of those ones.
• 2:06:23
  Die hard on a plane, die hard on a bus, die hard on a in an ice
• 2:06:27
  rink. That is still happening now.
• 2:06:29
  The longevity of the film is is matched by the longevity of the
• 2:06:34
  influence throughout action films.
• 2:06:36
  Yeah. Yeah, in terms of action movies,
• 2:06:39
  there's been a lot of great examples, many of which we've
• 2:06:41
  talked about Raiders, Aliens, Terminator, Two, Mad Max, Fury,
• 2:06:45
  Rd. I think Diode stands up as well
• 2:06:47
  as any of those. And in terms of which is the
• 2:06:50
  most influential, it's up there. I mean T2 with IL Ms. ground
• 2:06:54
  breaking CGI changed the game in 1991 with Die Hard.
• 2:06:58
  While the effects work is brilliant, it's more around the
• 2:07:00
  writing I think. Yeah, like you say, look at the
• 2:07:02
  whole idea of Die Hard on or something, which is now became
• 2:07:05
  like a valid elevator pitch. Yeah, I can't think of any other
• 2:07:08
  film where that's the case. Nobody say to a Hollywood exec.
• 2:07:11
  It's silent to the Lambs on a bus, surely.
• 2:07:16
  Love that. I mean, it sounds great, yeah.
• 2:07:20
  But I mean that we still hear that today, decades later, and
• 2:07:23
  still see beaten action films that are near carbon copies of
• 2:07:26
  scenes in Die Hard. I think that's some achievement.
• 2:07:28
  Surely nobody was expecting that at the time.
• 2:07:30
  Certainly not. Yeah, I think what Die Hard did
• 2:07:32
  was bring a fragility to the main star and have an emotion
• 2:07:36
  and make them fragile and make them hurt.
• 2:07:39
  And there weren't these superstars that just powered the
• 2:07:41
  way through anything. And there was this element of
• 2:07:44
  peril that it brought to it. And again, the intelligence to
• 2:07:47
  the right and the depth to the right and they weren't scared to
• 2:07:50
  go there and have relationships that didn't work out.
• 2:07:52
  I see its influence mostly in in speed.
• 2:07:55
  For me, I watch Speed and I just see Die Hard.
• 2:07:58
  That's the film for me where I'm like that is a carbon copy,
• 2:08:00
  probably sits you on the bond as well.
• 2:08:02
  But I think that's the film for me that takes that blueprint and
• 2:08:05
  reworks it and reworks it really well.
• 2:08:07
  Many sequels for Die Hard then very much hit and miss for us.
• 2:08:10
  But in catapult, in the careers of Bruce with us and Alan
• 2:08:13
  Rickman, and becoming a benchmark by which action films
• 2:08:15
  sins are measured, the original legacy is sealed, I think.
• 2:08:19
  Oh, forever. You're amazing.
• 2:08:25
  All the right movies ranking. And that is that on Die Hard The
• 2:08:30
  roof has been blown off. Now it's time to see what we
• 2:08:34
  really think by giving our final summaries and scores on the
• 2:08:36
  film. Right.
• 2:08:39
  Wesley, you want to kick us off your summary and score for Die
• 2:08:41
  Hard, please? Yeah, no alarms and no surprises
• 2:08:46
  over here. We all know, and apparently it's
• 2:08:48
  a classic westie now to do this thing.
• 2:08:51
  It's not going to be any different to what you expect us
• 2:08:53
  to say. I love it.
• 2:08:55
  Yeah, it's flawless. It's timeless.
• 2:08:57
  It's wonderful. I'll never get sick of it, but
• 2:09:00
  I've watched it for maybe twice 3 * a year since our very first
• 2:09:04
  saw it. It's just it's just a wonderful
• 2:09:06
  thing. And I'll said, I've said this
• 2:09:08
  100 times and I'll say it again. If we have a conversation and
• 2:09:10
  you say I don't like Die Hard, then I don't like you.
• 2:09:14
  Classic Westie. It's a 10.
• 2:09:18
  Yeah, it's a great film for sure.
• 2:09:20
  A film that I think gets better with age.
• 2:09:22
  To be honest, I prefer that we get from 1988.
• 2:09:25
  Compared to how little Die Hard seems Outdated is really
• 2:09:27
  impressive to me. That comes in the writing, a
• 2:09:31
  timelessly influential concept. It's in the direction
• 2:09:34
  fantastically choreographed and put together by John Mctiennan,
• 2:09:38
  the visual effects from Boss Studios.
• 2:09:40
  Aside from one or two shots, the whole thing still looks 100%
• 2:09:43
  real to me. It does, and in Bruce Willis's
• 2:09:45
  McLean and and Mcmillan's hands, the greatest action hero and
• 2:09:49
  action villain combo on the big screen For me, one of the
• 2:09:53
  greatest action films of all time.
• 2:09:55
  One of the greatest Christmas films of all time.
• 2:09:57
  It deserves A10, but as it's not one of my very favorite films,
• 2:10:02
  what I'm not going to give it one all of that.
• 2:10:08
  It's a roof exploding 9.59. Out of 10.
• 2:10:12
  Unbelievable. That is a shame.
• 2:10:15
  The quarterback is toast. Hi Luke, you're summary and
• 2:10:21
  score for Die Hard. I think we know.
• 2:10:23
  Yeah, I mean, I think I've made my feelings clear on this one
• 2:10:26
  many over the years. Many times over.
• 2:10:29
  Yeah. It's just a magnificent film
• 2:10:30
  full of thrills and spills, and for a runtime well over 2 hours,
• 2:10:34
  it keeps you on the edge. You see that never sacks.
• 2:10:37
  Absolutely. All parts of the film making
• 2:10:39
  process purring, really, really working together to create
• 2:10:43
  something magnificent. There is that moment with Powell
• 2:10:46
  and Karl at the end, which could threaten maximum scores, but as
• 2:10:50
  it's the best action movie ever made for me and a whole load
• 2:10:54
  more than that. Besides, it's an easy 10 out of
• 2:10:56
  10. Easy.
• 2:10:59
  Lovely. So now it's time for the modern
• 2:11:01
  day Special Agent Johnson's or Twitter or ex followers.
• 2:11:05
  Yeah, we opened it up to them and some of their comments on
• 2:11:09
  Die Hard. Sonny Crockett at Sonny
• 2:11:11
  Crockett, 92 said 10. Perfect movie, great cast and
• 2:11:16
  script. Perfect levity.
• 2:11:18
  Greatest action movie of all time.
• 2:11:19
  Yeah, I said it. It's a Christmas movie.
• 2:11:22
  Sorry, I heard your feelings. Didn't hear my feelings, no.
• 2:11:26
  Feelings. Overthinking that one, bro.
• 2:11:32
  Luca Mclucas and at lurking is my jam.
• 2:11:35
  So, big fan of lurking, yeah? Sounds like.
• 2:11:37
  It sounds weird. Lurker said it has a few too
• 2:11:41
  many needlessly stupid supporting characters.
• 2:11:43
  The agents Johnson, Dwayne T Robinson, Harvey the Anchorman,
• 2:11:47
  Ellis, Dick, Thornburg, etcetera.
• 2:11:49
  But other than that, it's extraordinarily good.
• 2:11:52
  It's so good, they've been trying and failing to replicate
• 2:11:54
  it ever since. Etcetera, That's it.
• 2:11:57
  Etcetera. All of the cast are needless,
• 2:12:02
  but it's an exceptionally good film.
• 2:12:05
  Yeah, there are loads of supporting characters, but I
• 2:12:08
  quite like them all to be a little.
• 2:12:09
  Great. They've got a reason to be
• 2:12:11
  there. And one of our paid runs, Derek
• 2:12:14
  Noonan, said. The best in theatre movie
• 2:12:17
  experience of my life, right? Wow.
• 2:12:20
  Never have I felt so pumped walking out of the cinema with
• 2:12:23
  my friends. Still remembered vividly, over
• 2:12:25
  30 years later. The perfect action film.
• 2:12:28
  Nice. Agreed dull boy.
• 2:12:31
  Went straight off to get some Twinkies no doubt.
• 2:12:33
  Absolutely. And altogether, our followers
• 2:12:36
  rated the film as What do you Think out of 10?
• 2:12:39
  10 fucking 10. I mean, it's got to be a 10.
• 2:12:43
  It was 9.5 out of 10. What disappointed?
• 2:12:48
  It was a whisker away, right? So in total that gives die hard
• 2:12:52
  39 out of 40. That's still a hell of a score.
• 2:12:54
  Not good enough. All right.
• 2:13:00
  I was going to say Geronimo, motherfucker, but Wes is kind of
• 2:13:03
  pissed on me. I'm going.
• 2:13:05
  To piss on your .5 ships. 39's not good enough?
• 2:13:12
  I'm a perfectionist. And that's it.
• 2:13:15
  We're off. Get the ambulance ready.
• 2:13:17
  Hopefully, like this episode. And don't think we need to wake
• 2:13:20
  up and smell, but we've been shoveling.
• 2:13:22
  Not any more than usual anyway. Well.
• 2:13:24
  Yeah. Next time I was Westy.
• 2:13:26
  Look and Matt are having a really nice time talking Colin
• 2:13:29
  Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Martin McDonagh.
• 2:13:32
  They're in Bruges. Nice.
• 2:13:34
  Should be a fun one. Yeah, be like a fucking fairy
• 2:13:37
  tale or something, rightly. Oh yeah, all the bridges, all
• 2:13:39
  the rivers, all that. Yeah, all.
• 2:13:41
  We get all buildings and that. Just try not to say anything too
• 2:13:46
  loud across Wesley. No, but I mean, I'll try and be
• 2:13:49
  very best. I'll be here myself, yeah.
• 2:13:51
  To find out more about becoming a patron, supporting what we do,
• 2:13:55
  and accessing our archive and bonus episodes, please visit
• 2:13:57
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• 2:14:02
  Apple Podcasts. You can subscribe, rate, and
• 2:14:05
  review us on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and all of your other
• 2:14:08
  podcast platforms. Just five star reviews though,
• 2:14:11
  please. Full marks, unlike die hard full
• 2:14:14
  marks. Yes.
• 2:14:15
  No. Four point fives.
• 2:14:16
  No. Shit.
• 2:14:18
  I think Empire Magazine, so five stars.
• 2:14:20
  Retrospective review Come back and give way.
• 2:14:22
  Yeah, wait a year and give it five stars.
• 2:14:26
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  Now X where we are at 80 right movies we post threads on there
• 2:14:32
  that tell the stories behind classic films.
• 2:14:34
  Everything that we post has been said by somebody involved in the
• 2:14:37
  production or come from three separate sources, same as on our
• 2:14:40
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• 2:14:42
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• 2:14:58
  our website which is full of great features.
• 2:15:00
  Is it all the Right movies.com? It is Oh.
• 2:15:04
  Lot to get on with. Yeah, lots of presents to open
• 2:15:07
  there. We're all off now to negotiate
• 2:15:10
  $1,000,000 deals for breakfast and handle some Euro trash.
• 2:15:14
  Absolutely. If this is our idea of
• 2:15:16
  Christmas, you've got to be here for New Year's.
• 2:15:18
  So come by next time for In Rouge.
• 2:15:21
  Happy feels everyone and Merry Christmas.
• 2:15:23
  Merry Christmas everyone. Thank you for listening.