Die Hard

Director: John McTiernan John McTiernan

Overview

It's Christmas time in L.A., and there's an employee party in progress on the 30th floor of the Nakatomi Corporation building. The revelry comes to a violent end when the partygoers are taken hostage by a group of terrorists headed by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), who plan to steal the 600 million dollars locked in Nakatomi's high-tech safe. In truth, Gruber and his henchmen are only pretending to be politically motivated to throw the authorities off track; also in truth, Gruber has no intention of allowing anyone to get out of the building alive. Meanwhile, New York cop John McClane (Bruce Willis) has come to L.A. to visit his estranged wife, Holly (Bonnie Bedelia), who happens to be one of the hostages. Disregarding the orders of the authorities surrounding the building, McClane, who fears nothing (except heights), takes on the villains, armed with one handgun and plenty of chutzpah. Until Die Hard came along, Bruce Willis was merely that wisecracking guy on Moonlighting. After the film's profits started rolling in, Willis found himself one of the highest-paid and most sought-after leading men in Hollywood.

Product Details

Release Date:	06/19/2007
UPC:	0024543440864
Original Release:	1988
Rating:	R
Source:	20Th Century Fox
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, DTS 5.1-Channel Surround Sound, Dolby Digital Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	2:12:00
Sales rank:	6,123

Special Features

Commentary by director John McTiernan and production designer Jackson DeGovia; Scene-specific commentary by special effects supervisor Richard Edlund; Subtitle commentary by various cast and crew; Branching version with the extended Power Shutdown Scene cut back in

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Bruce Willis	John McClane
Alan Rickman	Hans Gruber
Reginald VelJohnson	Sgt. Al Powell
Bonnie Bedelia	Holly McClane
Alexander Godunov	Karl
Hart Bochner	Harry Ellis
Paul Gleason	Dwayne Robinson
William Atherton	Thornburg
James Shigeta	Takagi
De'voreaux White	Argyle
Bruno Doyon	Franco
Andreas Wisniewski	Tony
Clarence Gilyard Jr.	Theo
Joey Plewa	Alexander
Lorenzo Caccialanza	Marco
Gerard Bonn	Kristoff,Kristoff
Dennis Hayden	Eddie
Al Leong	Uli
Gary Roberts	Heinrich
Hans Buhringer	Fritz
Wilhelm von Homburg	James
Robert Davi	Big Johnson
Grand L. Bush	Little Johnson
Bill Marcus	City Engineer
Rick Ducommun	City Worker
Matt Landers	Capt. Mitchell
Carmine Zozzora	Rivers
Dustyn Taylor	Ginny
George Christy	Hasseldorf
Cheryl Baker	Woman
Richard Parker	Man
David Ursin	Harvey Johnson
Mary Ellen Trainor	Gail Wallens
Diana James	Supervisor
Shelley Pogoda	Dispatcher
Taylor Fry	Lucy McClane
Noah Land	John Jr.
Betty Carvalho	Paulina
Kip Waldo	Convenience-Store Clerk
Mark Goldstein	Station Manager
Tracy Reiner	Thornburg's Assistant
Bill Margolin	Producer
David Katz	Soundman
Robert Lesser	Businessman
Stella Hall	Stewardess
Terri Lynn Doss	Girl at Airport
Jon E. Greene	Boy at Airport
Randall Bowers	Kissing Man,Kissing Man
Selma Archerd	Hostage
Michele Laybourn	Girl in Window
Scot Bennett	Hostage
Rebecca Broussard	Hostage
Bruce P. Schultz	Cameraman
Fred Lerner	Guard
Rick Cicetti	Guard
Shanna Higgins	Hostage
Kym Malin	Hostage
Kate Finlayson	Hostage
Chuck Riley	Voices
Bob Jennings	Cameraman
Tony Peck	Young Cop
Michael Kamen	Composer

Technical Credits

Jeb Stuart

Steven E. de Souza

Roderick Thorp

Steven De Souza

John McTiernan	Director
Jeb Stuart	Screenwriter
Steven E. de Souza	Screenwriter
Lawrence Gordon	Producer,Executive Producer,Producer
Joel Silver	Producer
Al Di Sarro	Special Effects
Richard Edlund	Special Effects
Charles Picerni	Stunts
Al Overton	Sound Mixer,Sound/Sound Designer
Stephen H. Flick	Sound Effects
Richard Shorr	Sound Effects
Kenny Bates	Stunts
Roderick Thorp	Screenwriter
Ron Bartlett	Sound Effects
Yarek Alfer	Special Effects
Vanessa Theme Ament	Sound Effects
George H. Anderson	Sound Effects
Kevin Barlia	Sound Effects
Don J. Bassman	Sound Effects
William Aldridge	Special Effects
Jackie Burch	Casting
Chuck Picerni Jr.	Stunts
Steven De Souza	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

John McTiernan's Die Hard introduced a type of character that hadn't been seen much in big-budget action films of the 1980s: the working class hero. Apart from Sylvester Stallone's Rambo movies and some of the cruder, decidedly low-budgeted, martial-arts movies starring Chuck Norris, there wasn't a precedent for Bruce Willis's gruff John McClane. In contrast to its predecessors, Die Hard was such a high-profile production that Willis was suddenly elevated to the status of cultural icon, not unlike Sean Connery and his alter ego James Bond. Willis and McTiernan can take credit for bringing back the kind of distinctly American, masculine swagger John Wayne used to bring to his roles, albeit with a dirtier lexicon of catch-phrases than Wayne ever would've used on camera. The director and his crew of special effects experts could also take credit for a series of explosions that rivaled the combined fire-power and energy expended in Wayne's The Hellfighters, Back To Bataan, The Sands of Iwo Jima, Chisum, and The Longest Day combined. It's a testament to Willis' star power that his work in this vein is still taken seriously at the box-office, as evidenced by Die Hard: With a Vengeance, and not yet an object of excessive burlesque or parody -- something that cannot be said of Stallone's 1990s action pictures. Bruce Eder