A Good Day to Die Hard, the fifth entry in the Die Hard series, includes a rather peculiar closing credit: “Certain original characters created by Roderick Thorp.” There’s an explanation for that curious wording: the original Die Hard film was very loosely based on Thorp’s novel Nothing Lasts Forever, with its leading character of Detective Joe Leland (a holdover from Thorp’s book The Detective, played by Frank Sinatra in that volume’s 1968 film adaptation) de-aged and transformed into Bruce Willis’s John McClane. But the clumsy verbiage seems appropriate, since A Good Day to Die Hard is kinda, sorta based on Thorp’s work, but not really, because the latest Die Hard sequel is (like the film that preceded it) barely related to the character at all. It’s another chapter in the continuing betrayal of what the series is, and what it once represented. … Read More

This week, Bruce Willis rides the current wave of Boomer Action Cinema to return as John McClane in A Good Day to Die Hard. Willis’ working-class hero has now been gracing theater screens for 25 years and has seen his fair share of changes – more road trips, added sidekicks, children popping up, developing super powers that let him duck flying cars and surf jets. Live Free or Die Hard in particular began to pull the character away from his roots. But no matter where Willis’ hero goes, no matter who he fights, there are always dependable things we can expect to see in each film — and we’re not just talking about his potty-mouthed catchphrase. A recent reviewing of the entire series made us realize that there are a variety of smaller tropes that keep popping up in every Die Hard film. So, in the hopes of temporarily putting aside any fears that we may be increasingly losing the spirit of the franchise to filmmakers who don’t get John McClane, here are a few of the surprising things that help make a Die Hard movie, a Die Hard movie. … Read More