What Die Hard Taught Us

By Alan Peters

The title may have baffled Bruce but here at
FilmJuice there’s no confusion. It’s back and it’s bigger and ballsier than
ever before. A
Good Day To Day Hard hits UK cinemas on 14^th February and what
better way could there be to romance that special someone on Valentine’s Day,
than a hefty dose of testosterone, gun porn and Bruce in a sweat-stained vest?
So join Alan Peters as he wets our appetites for the fifth installment in the
insanely popular franchise with some thoughts on the wonders of Die Hard …

1: The more you beat him, the stronger he becomes.
Fire, bullets, crashing
planes, debris, stabbing … nothing seems to stop John McClane. Maybe it’s a
good burst of adrenaline kicking in or maybe it’s just plain old determinism
but the more injured he becomes, the more he kicks ass. Case in point; in the
first Die Hard, McClane has been shot several times, his feet have been sliced
up by broken glass, he has been caught in an explosion and yet he still has
enough strength to defeat the bad guy. What a guy.

2: Expecting the villain to have a sensitive side
is a bad idea.
When Mr. Takagi is held at gun point by Hans Gruber he steadfastly refuses to cooperate in the villain’s
diabolical scheme and tells him “you’ll just have to shoot me”. So Gruber does. In the head. See the
thing is: that’s the whole bad guy credo.
You can’t just expect the baddie to suddenly grow a conscience. They’re bad! If you tell them they’ll just have to shoot you it’s highly
unlikely they will stop for a moment, consider their lives and decide that they
would rather go off and become a champion flower arranger instead.

3: Vests are cool.
Vests slipped out of
popularity as an item of men’s clothing sometime in the 60s. That was until Die
Hard came along. Bruce Willis wore a vest with pride and
it was (seemingly) bulletproof. Sure, it got ripped, had blood splattered on it
and ended up smeared with various bodily fluids, but that just made it even
cooler. Is it any wonder that the sales of vests shot up in the latter part of
the ‘80s?

4: It is impossible for John McClane to get fired.
Throughout the Die Hard
movies, McClane destroys buildings, a couple of helicopters, several cars and a
plane and yet still manages to remain employed by the Police Department. Not to mention the people that he has
killed. If you ever need a job for life join, the NYPD or the LAPD. You’re
guaranteed to never be sacked no matter how much private property you destroy.

5: Christmas tape is incredibly powerful.
What sort of power tape is
the Nakatomi Company using to wrap their Christmas presents? It’s certainly
powerful enough to secure a handgun onto McClane’s back without slipping.
Imagine having to try and open a present wrapped in that stuff. The only time when a Christmas
blowtorch may come in handy.

6: The same s**t CAN happen to the same guy twice.
More than twice – in fact
soon to be five times. Let’s face
it, though, if it didn’t there wouldn’t be a franchise would there? How boring would Die Hard 2 have been if nothing actually happened? John picks his
wife up from the airport, gets a taxi home and gets stuck in some traffic. Then they get some Chinese food from
that nice place on the corner that they know. Hands up who’d rather watch a film about a terrorist attack
that ends up with John McClane crawling through some air conditioning vents
again. Yup. Thought so.

7: It’s always quicker to go through the park.
What could be nicer than a
lovely drive through Central Park with Samuel
L Jackson at your side? There are no roads but that shouldn’t really make
much difference because films have taught us that it’s always quicker to drive
through the park. Just make sure that those pesky picnickers and roller-skaters
don’t get in the way.

8: Christmas cards are unnecessary.
Don’t send a Christmas card
this year. Take a tip from John McClane and write it on the dead body of a
terrorist. Guaranteed to strike
fear into the hearts of any nuisance neighbour.

9: Terrorists can’t aim.
Terrorists have worse
shooting skills than Storm Troopers.
No matter how much lead they pump into the atmosphere, they never
actually manage to shoot McClane. Maybe it’s just that the vest is magic and
crates an impenetrable force field around him.

10: If you aim a car correctly, you’d be amazed at
what it can do.
In Die Hard 4.0 when trapped by a machine gun toting terrorist in a
helicopter with no chance of escape, what does John McClane do? He revs up the
car, leaps out and watches it fly up the ramp of a toll-booth and collide with
the helicopter causing it. Handy huh?

A Good Day To Die Hard is in UK cinemas from 14^th
February.