Anyone who has a passing
relationship with SpoilerAlert Podcast knows how I feel about the Die Hard
series. Actually, anyone who’s around me
for more than five minutes can deduce that one:
Actual Author Photo
However, in honor of Brando’s
favorite holiday film, I thought I’d ruminate on poor John McClane’s lot in
life. It is imperative that you
understand that I am not pointing out plot holes, merely illustrating a
surprising fact of his existence. You
see dear readers, if you think that McClane’s world would be all sunshine and
farts if only it weren’t for all those pesky terrorists, well you got another
thing comin!
So sit back and enjoy the
real pains in McClane’s ass:
1) THE FBI IS CONSTANTLY
SCREWING HIM OVER.
McClane is a cop from New York who worked in LA for a
spell, but he is NYPD through and through.
But if there is one thing that his experience should have taught him its
this: never trust the FBI! In the original Die Hard, a major plot point of the
film is that the FBI’s incompetence actually makes the bad guy’s plan
work. Hans “Bubby” Gruber even refers to
them as his Christmas miracle, and at one point (granted it’s a case of
mistaken identity) they actually open fire on McClane while he’s trying to get
hostages to safety.
Interagency Cooperation
Bad first impression you say?
Ok, how about in Die Hard With A Vengeance when they reward McClane’s saving of
hundreds of lives in a New York subway explosion with an interrogation and
slyly insinuate that he could be in on the plot? That’s Bureau procedure if
ever I’ve seen it. At this point in his
career, McClane should be able to threaten the President and still get the
benefit of the doubt, but the FBI still isn’t too sure about him. Of course, the best moment comes in Live Free
Or Die Hard when we find out that the FBI is basically responsible for the
entire freakin’ plot of the film, as they hired the villain to protect America’s
computer-automated systems (www.runseverything.gov), fired him, and proceeded
not to change one damn thing that he left in place. I’m serious, they don’t even change his login
password after he basically tells them the cyber version of, “I’ll get you my
pretties!!” To make matters worse, to cover their asses, they keep all of this
a secret until they admit it to the only FBI Agent that thinks McClane is worth
a damn, and his only response is a sneer so intense that it completely conveys
the words “Senate Judiciary Review”.”
Way to go boys, J. Edgar
would be proud!
2) NO ONE EVER BELIEVES HIM.
Maybe its never been said that John McClane never told a
lie, but for some reason, anytime he says anything remotely insightful he is
immediately met with criticism and disbelief.
After risking life and limb to kill a terrorist and steal
a radio in the original Die Hard, McClane gets to the roof of the Nakatomi
building and begins to broadcast a desperate plea for help on the emergency
band using clear and cohesive language.
The immediate response from a trained 911 operator? He’s a crank caller.
After he tells the LADP not to breach the building because of the terrorists’
superior firepower, they can’t wait to blow him off to go get killed by the
very rocket launcher that he warned them about.
In Die Hard 2, after half the movie goes by and McClane has been right
about EVERY FREAKING PLOT POINT, Capt. Lorenzo actually threatens to arrest him
for being out of his mind once McClane spoon-feeds him the bad guys’ entire
plan. Only after McClane unloads on
Lorenzo with an automatic weapon loaded with blanks (that the terrorists were
using) does McClane’s theory start getting some play.
Proper Police Procedure
By the time Die Hard With A
Vengeance happens, McClane takes the time to call Inspector Cobb and reveal the
terrorists’ plan, all the while dodging an exploding Manhattan. The Inspector’s response to McClane, the
officer that he sent on the mission to literally figure out the terrorists’
plan and report back, is to question whether or not he has been drinking. And
of course, once the beloved FBI shows up in Live Free Or Die Hard to get
McClane’s take on things, their only response is to tell him that the scenario
that they are actually experiencing is simply not possible. At what point does someone say, “You know, he
might just have a knack for this stuff”?
3) NO ONE REMEMBERS WHAT HE
DID AT THE AIRPORT BACK IN 1990.
John McClane fought his way into our hearts by using his
wits, a Beretta, and the only cool wife-beater ever to overcome thirty
terrorists in the Nakatomi Building in LA.
We all loved the movie, and in the Die Hard universe, this is what he’s
known for. He’s constantly getting
ragged about it in the second film and the entire plot of Die Hard With A
Vengeance seems to be a revenge driven rampage because the bad guy is Hans
Gruber’s older brother.
Nepotism
When Zeus asks him if he’s famous or something, McClane
off-handedly mentions the skyscraper incident depicted in the original
film. The problem? In Die Hard 2, he
basically wins the country’s war on drugs, takes out Manuel Noriega, and quells
a ridiculously high level military special ops mutiny, not to mention that he
also solves the biggest FAA crisis in history and saves the lives of literally
THOUSANDS of people. This would be SUCH
a bigger deal than the Nakatomi Building incident!! That was thirty terrorists
stealing money; this is the Cocaine Kingpin of Panama and TWO (count ‘em!)
Green Beret quality rouge Army platoons. Yet from the moment its over, everyone
he meets is like, “John McClane? Right, that building in LA.” That would be
like meeting Aaron Rodgers and only remembering that he worked at the food
court.
Welcome to Mr. Smileys!!!
The fact that no one can
recall this incident leads me to believe that McClane’s awesomeness caused
every other person on the planet’s brain to immediately erase the memory or
face total protonic reversal (yeah, it’s a real thing).
4) HIS WIFE IS A TOTAL BITCH.
When we meet McClane, he is separated from his wife Holly
because of career matters; he’s a New York cop and she has been transferred to
LA with a very lucrative executive job.
They embrace and then launch into a fight about how they are both unhappy with
what is essentially a common marital problem.
At the beginning of the second film, he’s an LAPD cop, having given up
his career in New York for his family and followed her out to the coast. By the time he saves her for the second time,
they’re established as a loving couple with this little problem of always
inviting too many terrorists for Christmas.
Party Crashers
Once we get to the third film
though, they’ve been squabbling again and McClane has gone back to New York
even though they’re still married. When
he finally gets the gut check to swallow his pride and call her, he
unfortunately has to run off at the last second to save the United States
entire MONETARY BACKUP and must leave her hanging on the line. Her reaction is to immediately start cussing
him out over the phone. McClane once
threw a guy through a jet engine turbine just because he threatened Holly’s
safety, and her reaction to a missed phone call is to immediately assume he’s
just screwing around with her emotions again?
Further more, he’s completely faithful to her. In the original film, when a drunk executive
flirts with Holly and invites her out for a romantic evening, she coyly
retreats into her professional demeanor and chides him about the true meaning
of Christmas. (I’m sorry, I hope my wife would say something along the lines
of, “I’m married ass-hat and this is totally unwanted sexual harassment! I can’t
wait till some German terrorist blows your cocaine addled brain out the back of
your skull!”)
A Proportional Response
McClane’s way? In Die Hard 2,
when the attractive Rent-A-Car Girl (the character’s legitimate name) asks
McClane if he’d be interested in getting a drink, he immediately points to his
wedding ring and laughs off the invitation. But the biggest knife in the back from our
girl Holly is when McClane goes to visit his daughter Lucy in Live Free Or Die
Hard and finds not only does she use her mother’s maiden name out of allegiance
to Holly after the divorce, but she makes several comments hinting at the fact
that mom thought he was a crappy guy.
How does it pan out? After one afternoon in her dad’s world, Lucy can’t
wait to tell anyone that will listen that her last name is McClane and she is
her father’s daughter. Perhaps, just once,
Holly should have set the kids down and explained to them that even though
Mommy and Daddy aren’t married anymore they both love them very much and Daddy
is just a little busy because often times he is literally the only thing
keeping America safe from complete annihilation.
5) THE F*&%$#G WRITERS
HATE HIM.
John McClane is a descent guy who just happens to do
incredible things (the entire appeal of the first film is that he’s an everyman
who rises to the occasion). He’s a
loving husband and father, an honest cop, nice to everyone who isn’t trying to
kill him, and, oh yeah, every now and then he saves the freakin’ world. However, somewhere around pre-production on
Die Hard With A Vengeance, the producers discovered that they could save some
coin by not hiring back Bonnie Bedelia and Reginald Vel Johnson.
Cost-prohibitive. And surprisingly gay.
To facilitate this casting
decision, in the third film McClane becomes an alcoholic, washed-up loner.
WHAT?!? Everything he does in the first two films is for his family and the
safety of others, but now he’s a perpetual screw-up that can’t keep his life on
track. To further this thread, and to
play off the idea that McClane is an anachronistic guy living in a modern
world, by the time Live Free Or Die Hard rolls around he’s completely aware of
how much of a loser he is! He actually tells Justin Long how much his life
sucks because he’s pretty much a superhero.
See above WHAT?!? I once helped a guy at a traffic accident and when the
guy told me thank you, I told that story to literally every human I interacted
with for a month. John McClane should
walk the earth never having to pay his own bar tab and spend most of his time wondering
why everyone else can’t get their shit together, but instead the writers have
Silent Bob and the Mac Kid ragging on him because he doesn’t know what a USB
port is. When the bad guy hacks into his
personnel records, he even makes a snide remark about how pathetic McClane’s
financial picture is. Could that be
because he’s an honest cop that never stole the free crap that the terrorists
were constantly leaving in their wake or because he never sued the Beretta
company for making their grips so damn slippery? (Seriously, watch the movies again,
that gun slips out of his hand every ten minutes!!)
Beretta Handle Stick-um
So, what is his reward for
being so mind-blowingly awesome? Divorce, estrangement from his children, and a
blown liver. Thanks a lot writers!!
Hmm… Perhaps I watch these
movies a little too much…
From all of us at
SpoilerAlert Podcast, Merry Christmas!!
