Everyone Has Reversals

Story Lessons, Big and Small (Warning: Spoilers!)

January 14, 2007

When a Dozen Terrorists Just Isn't Enough

It had been a while since I'd seen Die Hard. I knew it was going to hold up-- I just wasn't sure what new thing I might learn from it. What I discovered was just how many assholes one movie can stand.

Here's what's everyone remembers about the movie: a New York cop (McClane) must outwit, outlast, and outshoot a dozen terrorists in a tower office building to save his wife Holly and the rest of her co-workers. McClane gets a little help from an L.A. cop, Al, on the ground.


So, a hero and a couple of allies vs. a dozen or more villains. Surely that's plenty to deal with.


Except the movie keeps adding to the "bad" side, making things wildly unbalanced. McClane's seriously outnumbered by terrorists. Then the local cops who come to his aid (Al aside) are incompetent. Then the FBI comes on the scene-- ignorant pinheads who do exactly the wrong thing and endanger their own lives, and the lives of the hostages. Then there's the journalists-- particularly the William Atherton character, who visits McClane's family and scares his kids. And who could forget the idiotic coke-snorting hostage Ellis, who manages to reveal to Hans Gruber that one of the hostages is the wife of the "cowboy" who's killing his men?


So, good guys: 3 or 4. Bad guys: maybe 50?


McClane, as good as he is, is a true underdog. And he has lots of moments of frustration, suffering, and failure. But it sure makes those moments of triumph (and Al's, and Holly's) that much sweeter.


You can always stack things a little higher against the hero.

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1 Comments:

Blogger Joe said...

Die Hard really does hold up, but I differ with the sentiment of your post, Jennica. I think the movie works because the odds are stacked so high against McClane, with only the "Family Matters" cop a reliable help on the ground. If the LAPD, FBI and news media were all as lovable as that character, a lot of the suspense would have been negated.

But that's just me. One man's comic relief is another man's asshole. I think Dane Cook proves this.

11:32 a.m.  

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