Die Hard

A film set in one building in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve. John McClane is a policeman from New York. He comes to Los Angeles to see his estranged wife; she is an executive at a company and the office Christmas party is on the thirtieth floor. An armed group takes the building. They take everyone hostage and say their aim is political; it is not, they want the bearer bonds in the vault. McClane is in the bathroom when it starts. He is left alone and he has no shoes. From there the film is a vertical chase. Lift shafts, ventilation ducts, stairwells, the roof and the unfinished floors. The outside is part of the narrative too. The police chief makes the wrong decision, the federal agents make a worse one, a reporter goes to the house and puts the children on camera, and all of it makes things worse. What the narrative is interested in is not action but disadvantage: McClane is never the stronger side; he is injured, he is frightened, and he stays upright by talking to one policeman on the radio. Hans Gruber is one of the best villains in the genre. Calm, courteous and in possession of a plan; he does not reach for force. The building was the producing studio's own headquarters and was not yet finished at the time; the construction state of the upper floors was used directly in the film. The source is a novel, and that novel was the sequel to another film; under contract the part had to be offered to the star of the first one before anyone else. It was Alan Rickman's first film. Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia and Reginald VelJohnson are in the cast. John McTiernan directed. Who it is for: anyone who wants the best example of single-location action. Who it is not for: anyone sensitive to coarse language and violence; the film is set at Christmas but is not a family film.