It was a movie that at first glance wasn’t destined to hit the heights of a proper blockbuster.
Adapted from a novel that was the sequel to a film that Frank Sinatra had done two decades before and had first refusal on, coupled with the fact that Bruce Willis had been the umpteenth choice after several other name actors had turned it down and even he wasn’t a sure thing after a stuttering big-screen career despite success in TV’s MOONLIGHTING alongside Cybill Shepherd, DIE HARD seemed destined to be nothing more than yet another 80s action B-movie.
What emerged though was one of the defining moments of action movie history.
John McClane (Willis), a New York cop, is struggling to hold his marriage together having separated from his wife, Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) who has moved to LA to pursue her career with the Japanese Nakatomi Corporation. Upon arrival, their reunion is not the best, but things are about to get more interesting with the arrival of a group of terrorists, led by the dastardly Hans Gruber, a renegade banned from a faction in Germany, who has got a clever plan in hand to try and steal $640m in negotiable bearer bonds from the vault within the building (the Fox Plaza in Century City, LA)
They take the staff, including Holly, hostage but McClane escapes into the other floors and begins tracking and pursuing them, whilst hoping to save the day…
Thanks to John McTiernan’s majestic direction and a sharp script by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. De Souza, whose previous credits at the time included COMMANDO and 48 HRS, DIE HARD was a well and truly involving cinematic thriller with some sharp one-liners and some brilliant moments of action, coupled with amazing visual effects by Richard Edlund (STAR WARS)