Die Hard
Die Hard is an action film released in 1988. Starring Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman, and directed by John McTiernan, this film was a smash success that started a subgenre of films unofficially nicknamed "Die Hard in a..." where a solitary hero fights a deadly cat-and-mouse game against a group of villains in an isolated building or large vehicle. The film features Willis as a sympathetic hero with typical human weaknesses, unlike the Übermensch heroes typically played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. It revitalized Willis' career, giving him more credibility in action and dramatic roles, and helped Alan Rickman become a popular player of villains in American film.
The movie is based on a 1970s novel by Roderick Thorp called Nothing Lasts Forever (itself a sequel to the book, Detective, which was also made into a movie, starring Frank Sinatra). The novel's hero is Joe Leland, a cop who is in a Los Angeles skyscraper when a terrorist, Tony Gruber, takes over the building, with his daughter in it. Leland must battle the terrorists and rescue his daughter. Many parts of the movie are very similar to the book, despite the years that passed between the book's publication and the movie's 1988 release.
The film spawned two sequels, Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990) and Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995). The fourth film in the series is, as of now, named Die Hard 4.0. Little is known about Die Hard 4.0 except that John McClane will not be a cop in the film that that the plot of the film may include theams of information warfare.
Synopsis
The film opens with New York City police detective John McClane coming to Los Angeles to reunite with his estranged wife, played by Bonnie Bedelia, for the Christmas holidays. He meets her at her place of work, a large office building called the Nakatomi Plaza, which is in the middle of a Christmas party. After an initial meeting which included strained greetings with her boss and an oily colleague, the couple have an argument over their separation and her decision to be addressed by her maiden name. Holly rejoins the party while John stays in a room kicking himself for picking a fight with his wife.
Unknown to them, a gang of terrorists led by Hans Gruber invades the building and seizes control of the building's security and communication systems, isolating it from the outside. Then they take the entire staff of the Nakatomi head office as hostages and take the regional director for some private business. Once alone, they reveal that they are not terrorists, but actually criminals who are posing as terrorists in their plan to rob $600 million worth of bearer bonds from the Nakatomi Building's main vault. When the director refuses to give the access codes to the vault, he is shot dead and the gang implement their secondary plan to break into the vault. Secretly, they are also planning to murder all their hostages in a cold-blooded scheme to fake their deaths to hide their escape.
John McClane manages to slip away and, shoeless and armed only with his police pistol, tries to call for the authorities. When he pulls the fire alarm, the gang detects it and call the fire department to report it as a false alarm. The youngest member of the gang is sent to investigate and kill the meddler, but John kills him instead. Grabbing his two-way radio, McClane desperately calls for help, but the police don't believe him and are more concerned about him calling in another false alarm. Only when the police hear automatic-weapons fire as three of Gruber's minions attack McClane do they respond. Unfortunately for McClane, Gruber's gang overhears this attempt and already have a member in the lobby to pose as a security guard to divert investigators.
While McClane is fighting for his life, Sgt. Al Powell (played by Reginald VelJohnson) is sent to investigate the building and is fooled into thinking all is in order. After killing two more members of the gang, McClane learns to his horror that the cop -- his last chance to get help -- is leaving. In one last desperate effort, McClane throws one of the dead criminals on top of Powell's police car and fires on it, forcing the cop to call frantically for backup.
With proof of a terrorist attack, the LAPD respond in full force. However, this was part of Hans Gruber's plan, and he manipulates them into helping pierce the vault and set up their escape. The problem for them is that John McClane, upon seeing the incompetence of the LAPD, begins to fight the terrorists from inside. McClane has taken the detonators that were in the possession of one of the slain gang members. What follows is a cat-and-mouse game as Hans Gruber tries to implement his group's plan while recovering the detonators and simultaneously trying to stop McClane from interfering further.
Eventually, after numerous deadly engagements during which Powell is McClane's only ally among the authorities, Gruber recovers the detonators. McClane figures out their plan which involves blowing up the roof with the hostages on top. He drives the hostages off the roof and barely manages to escape himself when Gruber sets off the explosion. The FBI cuts the electrical power to the building, allowing Gruber's gang to bypass the last electromagnetic seal on the vault. Meanwhile, an irresponsible TV reporter finds out about McClane's activity in the building and goes to his children's home for an easy news story. This alerts Gruber that Holly, who wisely hid her marriage to John from him, is an ideal hostage.
The film climaxes with a battered and beaten McClane, confronting Gruber one last time. With only two bullets in a gun hidden on his back, McClane manages to kill two of the remaining three gang members, including Gruber, and rescue Holly.