Die Hard Review

Die Hard is a love able film for those who enjoy the action film genre, it incorporates many famous cliches and some were even introduced by this film! Die Hard is about a man called John McClaine. It's Christmas time in Los Angles, and there's an employee party in progress on the 30th floor of the Nakatomi Corporation building. The party comes to a violent end when the party goers are taken hostage by a group of terrorists headed by Hans Gruber a small but smart looking foreign villain, who plan to steal the 600 million dollars locked in Nakatomi's high-tech safe. Gruber and his henchmen say to the hostages and to the authorities that it is a political grudge, but they are only pretending to be politically motivated to throw the authorities off track. The story follows John as he slowly picks off the henchmen one by one to help save his wife who is one of the hostages, as shown below.

The film ends with a standoff between Hans and John, where Johns wife is used body shield for Hans. But John manages to shoot Hans making him fall out of a window. Many cliches are used in this film, even the characters are cliche, John for example is a butch policeman who knows how to use a gun, not only that but he happens to slip away from the terrorists when they gather up the hostages. He is pictured below

Not only is John a cliche character but so is Hans Gruber and his henchmen. They are all foreign, most probably from Russia, all of them are not very muscly except from the lead henchman, all the henchmen seem to be quite feminine in ways such as the long hair, making the viewers at home or in the cinema side with John and not the villains. This is very stereotypical of action films as the villains are usually from foreign countries such as Russia or Iran. Usually the head of the terrorists which in this case is Hans seems to be less powerful than the other characters and henchmen and doesn't seem to get involved with the fighting, he usually wheres a suit to show his power, he is pictured below

Not only the characters are cliche but so is the story line, one part is the villain is trying to steal something ,which in the case of Die Hard is the 600 million dollars. And also there is a damsel in distress, Johns wife has been seized as a hostage, and he needs to rescue her. Another is the self-surgery scene, where John McClaine has glass stuck in his foot and needs to pull it out and apply a bandage, he uses part of his clothing to bandage it up, this is yet another cliche, were the characters apply a clever use of objects such as rappelling using a shirt and gun, which is done in Die Hard. One of the extremely obvious cliches in Die Hard is that John is never hit by one of the henchmen's bullets, they always seem to completely miss him, or fire just after where he has been. This is a very famous cliche used in action films as it helps build tension within the scene, and gives the viewer an adrenaline rush. Not only do the henchmen always seem miss but they never seem to run out of ammo, they fire many rounds at John and keep going for quite a long time. Slow motion is also shown in Die Hard where Hans is shot and falls out of a window and he falls in slow motion, in many films there is a slow motion shot and a fall where you look down on the person falling. Some of the other cliches and conventions in this film include a rooftop gunfight, a ventilation crawl, the police not helping the hero quickly, John getting captured then escaping and a fight for the only gun in the room.