Socko's Retro Movie Review of Die Hard

Well, with the release of the Die Hard Trilogy this week on DVD, I decided to take the time to review all three movies involved. Today will of course be about the original, and I’ll go ahead and follow up with the other two films in the next two days. Anyway, I decided to go ahead and toss the usual format of my reviews out the window (at least for the next few days) since there is just so much to talk about in this review because this DVD flat out rocks. I mean, if the movie alone wasn’t good enough, we have a boatload of extra goodies that can’t be passed up.

For those who are unaware, the plot of this film revolves around New York City cop John McClane, played by the one and only Bruce Willis. John is in L.A. visiting his estranged wife Holly (played by Bonnie Bedelia) for Christmas in hopes of fixing their crumbling marriage. Holly is a top executive for a Japanese company headquartered in the Nakatomi Building, and this is why everything gets interesting. Christmas music, lots of alcohol, and 640 million dollars in bonds…just the kind of party that terrorist Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) and associates are looking to crash.

Gruber and company come in with guns blazing and hold the entire building hostage…everyone minus one John McClane. He has managed to escape and start his one-man escapade to thwart Gruber’s evil plots. One by one (well, sometimes two at a time), McClane manages to knock off his evil adversaries, all the while wise-cracking and trash talking his opponents. Whether it is by revolver, machine gun, explosives, or accident, McClane is always able to stay on step ahead of his rivals, all leading to his climactic conclusion against the super evil Hans.

Now everybody and their mom knows that this movie rocks. I mean, it is easily the greatest action movie this side of the Pacific in the last twenty years. Spawning two great sequels and countless rip-offs that can’t come close to reaching its perfection, Die Hard is the model that action movies have been patterned after since 1988. Bruce Willis’ performance as a gritty cop trying to survive at all costs while saving everyone else is inspired to say the least, as Willis manages to bring a realistic quality to seemingly unrealistic circumstances. Let’s see Gibson or Stallone do that.

But while Willis may have carried the movie, it was Alan Rickman who stole the show. No one can quite grasp evil like that man can, as he coldly kills one innocent after another, all the while smiling about it. While this movie would have still rocked even without a strong “bad guy” character, it is a work of art to see Rickman’s Hans against Willis’ McClane is a game of human chess. Reginald VelJohnson playing Sgt. Al Powell and Alexander Godunov as the demented terrorist Karl round out the cast to perfection.

So what could possibly be better than this movie? Well, how about this movie in a 2 DVD set loaded with lots of goodies. Yep, for only $19.95, you have the single greatest DVD in the history of the world sitting right at your fingertips. Now I’m going to be honest with you. I own litterly hundreds of DVD’s, and I really have no clue as to what some of the special features really mean. I’m sorta a film novice when it comes to production and rough cuts and such, so this one was an enlightening experience for me. I learned more off of this DVD then I had learned in quite some time, which is good, since the extras are what make DVD’s worthwhile. And what kind of advisor would I be if I didn’t fill you in on all the extras?

While disk one offers a few options (branching of an extended scene that wasn’t added to the original film, commentary from John McTiernan and others, as well as script-to-scene comparison that I didn’t really get into), disk two is where all the fun was. Her is a rundown of the main features of disk two.

-From the Vault – This section contains some odds and ends that enrich the entire movie viewing experience, though they are view only. Not as much fun as the cutting room stuff, but great nonetheless.
*Outtakes – This is a combination of two sections. The first, called The Vault, is a collection of outtakes, rough cuts, and bloopers. While most of it is just alternate shots of stuff that made it into the movie, there are a couple bloopers that are quite funny. My favorite is an outtake where Hans asks Theo (played by Walker Texas Ranger’s own Clarence Gilyard Jr.) if he can decrypt the password code, and Theo responds by saying, “You didn’t bring me along for my charm and personality…though you could of.” The second part is the Extended Power Shutdown sequence that can be branched back into the movie during the first disk. It has an added step that isn’t shown in the final cut.
*The Newscasts – A collection of footage from the anchors of the news broadcasts in the movie itself. Quite a lot of footage for as little was used in the movie itself.
*Magazine Articles – A couple of magazine articles about the making of the movie. Nothing to write home about.

-The Cutting Room – These are the best features on disk two. I spent a lot of time playing with these.
*Scene Editing Workshop- This is the crème de la crème of the DVD set, as you actually have the opportunity to re-edit an entire scene using different camera angles. I got a huge kick out of revising the early scene where Gruber kills Takagi. While most of my selections created a hideous image, each had there own different tone and pace to them. It truly shows what an editors job can be like, even on the smallest scale.
*Multi-Camera Shooting – This extra shows how you can’t always do a scene more than once, and how different cameras can accomplish the task by giving different angles of the same take. While not as much fun for me as the rest of the features, it gets the job done.
*Audio Mixing – This feature gives you the option of playing one of the scenes (the one where Hans and McClane are face to face for the first time) while adjusting the sound volume of the dialogue, the music, and the special effects. Quite the fun little toy, even if it is nothing compared to what a real mixer works with. For someone like me who knew nothing about how mixing worked, it gets the point across in spades.
*Why Letterbox? – This is a sweet little 5-minute commentary by David Prior and Larry Yore on the differences between Letterbox versions of movies and Full Screen versions. Wow, for some who knew nothing about the benefits of Letterbox, this was a lifesaver. Did anyone else not know that the name Letterbox came from an editor one day noticing the similarities of viewing it to that of looking through a mail slot?
*Glossary – This is actually a great little list of all kinds of neat cinematic terms dealing with cameras and editing and the like. Not only is it informative, but also there are a few cool sarcastic comments thrown in to keep everything interesting.

-Interactive Slide Show – This goodie isn’t really all that good. It’s a collection of still shots of the building and blueprints and other boring stuff.

-The Script – Yep, it’s the actual entire movie script on your TV screen. Not really my cup of tea, but I guess it’s a neat little feature for those interested.

-Ad Campaign – This is a collection of different trailers of Die Hard that were shown in theaters, TV spots shown on, well, TV, and a featurette. I don’t mind telling you that these all really suck pretty badly, as movie promotion has changed a lot in 13 years. I’m usually one for viewing trailers on DVD’s, but these left me empty.

As a side note for those who like Easter eggs (hidden features locked in DVD menus) hit the number 7 on your remote or press the up key until you are in the circle in the top middle half of the screen in the second disk main menu. There is a neat little joke that will pop up for those who figure out how to find it.

All in all, this DVD set rocks your world and mine. The movie alone gets 5 stars, plus the extra features add another 14, leaving us a grand total of 19 stars. I can’t wait to see what the two sequel sets are like, but till then, HAVE A NICE DAY!