Yippee-ki-yay, Rosebud…

Orson Wells' 1941 classic Citizen Kane has always been regarded as the best, most influential picture of all time. The camera work, compositing, editing techniques, swish pans, lighting, split focus and forethought into every shot have been the basis of every picture since that time. It's far from my favorite movie, but I can't help but appreciate what it has done for everything that has come after it. Today, however, we will not be discussing Wells' Kane, but another movie. A movie that since its release in 1988 has influenced every movie made in its genre. This one, as opposed to Kane, is one of my favorites, and is one of the absolute best of the best. I'm talking about of course, Die Hard, the Citizen Kane of action movies.

John McTiernan had only done a couple of movies before he hit it big with Die Hard. The only notable one was the Schwarzenegger hit Predator. However his ability to take such a simple story as Die Hard and make it into the impressive action movie it is truly defined him as a director. Let's not forget that Kane was Wells' first as well.

John McClane (played by Bruce Willis) was visiting his wife and kids in LA for Christmas. His wife took a great job out west and his life as a New York City cop kept him behind. He wanted to save his marriage, and he thought that joining his family for the holidays would be a good start. What John didn't know was that the Christmas party he was about to attend had some very sophisticated burglars planning to take $600,000,000 out of the vault, and blow up the building. John McClane was the only one with the guts to stop them.

There was a period of about 8 years after its release that every action movie that came out was referred to as "Die Hard on a boat," or "Die Hard on a plane." It spurred a plethora of movies that all wanted to be the next great action movie. Of course, none can ever achieve the excitement of the original. Die Hard was special. It was one very average man against a plethora of very clever enemies. This was certainly not the first movie to have one hero versus many villains. Heck, any western [or any early Clint Eastwood] has used that concept. However, one thing that made this movie different was the fact that he was trapped in the same building as his enemies. It wasn't that he was stronger than the bad guys. He just wasn't willing to give up. I mean, McClane pretty much gets his ass kicked during the entire movie, and he still ends up on top in the end.

I think one of the many things that separates this movie from so many other action movies is the suspension of disbelief. It's nothing new that people take a heck of a lot more abuse in the movies than people do in real life, but in Die Hard, Willis gets nailed to the wall over and over again. However, he has so much heart that you never give up on him, nor do you ever scoff and think, "That's dumb, no man could take that," true as it may be. Something about the punishment he takes makes you bond with him and his efforts that much more. You are never pulled out of the action. It begins very hard and finishes even harder, all the way down to Argyle popping Theo in the parking garage. It's not like so many action movies that begin with an action sequence that can't be topped by the time you reach the end. This one builds and builds, the mysteries unfold, secrets are found out and the entire time you want to see these terrorists get what they have coming to them by the hand of the now great, but then brand new to Hollywood, Bruce Willis.

This was Bruce Willis' first huge movie role. It launched his entire career. Yes, he had done Moonlighting and a couple of other flicks before hand, but this is what brought him into the main stream movie scene, and it's been pretty much constant success for him since then. Since 1988, he has made very few mistakes when it comes to picking roles. He has become one of Hollywood's greatest box office draws, and this is where it all began. Just acting as a simple man trying to save his family without any shoes.

What can I say about Hans Gruber? He is easily one of the greatest bad guys in motion picture history. Yes, I will put him up in the same rankings as Darth Vader, the Terminator, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, and Norman Bates. Hans Gruber is calm cool and smart. He had every bit of his crime plotted out very well. As a viewer, you feared and admired him. You began to think, "If I were to rob a bank, I need to put as much forethought into it as Hans Gruber did." More so after he meets comes across McClane. He wasn't about to cheat his crew, or just kill for the sake of being evil. It was all just business and a part of the plan. John McClane wasn't a part of the plan and of course, that was his great undoing.

Of course the featured music in Die Hard is the 4th movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, "Ode to Joy." When I got to play this song on band in High School, we of course re-named it "Die Hard theme." Since I had also seen Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange around the same time in my life as Die Hard, that song is stuck there in my head as one of the greatest pieces of music in history. It wasn't until after I learned more about the 9th symphony that I found out most people think it's one of the greatest pieces ever written. It had been motivating audiences since Beethoven and I was introduced to it while watching a bank vault open on the 30th floor of the Nakatomi building.

This movie is on TV all the time, but what I need you to do is to watch it again without the interruption of commercials, or the editing for content and language. Watching it this way tends to make us forget why all the TV channels what to show it in the first place. This is one of the finest action movies in motion picture history and every action movie since its release has tried to be as good as this one. It's smart, funny, entertaining, and energetic. Some movies may well be better, but they will never be what Die Hard was, the one that all the others tried to best.