Die Hard
(film)
Tagline : It will blow you through the back wall of the theater!
Bruce Willis - Officer John
McClane
Reginald VelJohnson - Sgt. Al Powell (as Reginald Veljohnson)
Bonnie Bedelia - Holly Gennero McClane
Alexander Godunov - Karl
Paul
Gleason - Deputy Police Chief Dwayne T. Robinson
William
Atherton - Richard Thornburg
De'voreaux White - Argyle
Hart Bochner - Harry Ellis
Alan Rickman - Hans Gruber
Dennis Hayden - Eddie
Clarence Gilyard Jr-. Theo
Bruno Doyon - Franco
Andreas Wisniewski - Tony
James Shigeta - Joseph Yoshinobu Takagi
Robert Davi - FBI Special Agent Johnson
Die Hard is an American action film released in 1988. It was written by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza, stars Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, Alan Rickman, Reginald VelJohnson and William Atherton, and was directed by John McTiernan. A huge critical and commercial success, Die Hard propelled Willis' film career and established Rickman as a popular portrayer of villains in American film. It started the Die Hard series.
John McClane, a detective with the New York City Police Department, arrives in Los Angeles to attempt a Christmas reunion with his estranged wife Holly. He is taken by limousine driver Argyle to her workplace, the high-rise Nakatomi Plaza. While Argyle waits in the building's parking garage, McClane joins the Nakatomi Christmas party where he finds Holly and they immediately get into an argument over her use of her maiden name Gennaro. Holly leaves McClane in a small room near the party.
A gang led by the suave German terrorist Hans Gruber invades and secures the building, under the pretence of gaining the release of various terrorist operatives. The party-goers are subdued and it is revealed that the group are actually thieves; they plan to use the false terrorist crisis to cover their theft of millions of dollars in bearer bonds from the building's security vault. Theo, the gang's technical mastermind, begins disabling the sequential vault locks, warning Gruber that the final electro-magnetic based lock will be impossible to bypass.
McClane manages to slip away during the round-up of the party-goers, albeit without his shoes. His attempt to summon help via the building's fire alarm brings him into confrontation with gang member Tony. Tony is killed, prompting the man's vengeful brother, Karl, to lead a hunt for the police officer throughout the building. McClane convinces a Los Angeles Police Department radio-operator to send a patrol unit to Nakatomi, then secures the attention of responding officer Al Powell by dropping the body of one of his pursuers onto the officer's car. He also takes a collection of C4 explosives and detonators off the body of another gangmember.
Nakatomi Plaza (in real life, the Fox Plaza).The LAPD responds in force, but
this merely accelerates Gruber's timetable. With the police led by the incompetent
Deputy Chief Dwayne Robinson, Powell quickly proves to be McClane's only useful
ally outside the building. A SWAT team and an armored reconnaissance vehicle are
easily and brutally repelled, to which McClane retaliates by bombing two of Gruber's
men along with an entire floor of the building with some of the C4.
An incensed Gruber orders Karl to track McClane down and recover the detonators while Gruber goes up to the roof access, where he finds himself in an unexpected face-to-face confrontation with McClane. Gruber attempts to pass himself off as a hostage; the ruse is distraction enough that Karl and his team surprise McClane in an ambush. McClane kills more gang-members but is forced to flee, leaving behind the detonators and severely injuring his feet. As he tends his wounds, Powell tells him via radio how he had recently shot a youth "armed" with a toy gun; his grief has him heading for a career as a desk officer.
Outside, the FBI arrives on the scene in the form of two swaggering agents. The duo order the building's power be cut, which serves only to deactivate the final lock on the building's vault, just as Gruber had planned. He "negotiates" with the FBI to release the hostages on the rooftop via helicopter. The agents plan to double cross the "terrorists" with a surprise gunship attack (with little regard to the hostages' welfare), while Gruber in fact is planning his own treachery; using the C4 to destroy the entire upper structure of the building, killing all the hostages and covering the gang's escape.
McClane investigates the roof access, wondering about Gruber's earlier presence in that area. Just as he discovers the primed C4, he is attacked by Karl. After a vicious battle, McClane leaves Karl hanging from a heavy chain. Back outside the building, an irresponsible TV reporter named Richard Thornburg accidentally alerts Gruber to the fact that Holly is McClane's wife. He takes her aside as a special hostage as his remaining men raid the vault and Theo goes to the parking garage to prepare the gang's getaway ambulance. Argyle, who has kept up with events via his limo's radio, rams the vehicle with his limousine and punches Theo unconscious.
McClane storms the roof and drives the hostages back down to safety. The FBI agents mistake McClane for a terrorist and fire at him, while Gruber proceeds with the C4 detonation. McClane escapes the blast by jumping over the side of the building with a fire hose tied around his waist, and shooting his way in through a window a couple of stories down. The gunship crew, including both FBI agents, are killed.
A battered McClane confronts Gruber one last time high up in the tower, with Holly being held at gunpoint. McClane tricks Gruber with a faked surrender and shoots the villain. Gruber falls out the window and grabs onto Holly's watch. McClane runs to his wife and undoes her watch and Gruber falls thirty stories to his death. As McClane and his wife leave the building, the seemingly-indestructible Karl reappears one last time, only to be gunned down by Powell. Holly and John are approached by Thornburg, still relentlessly angling for a fresh scoop. Holly punches the reporter and the couple departs the scene in Argyle's battered limo.
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