Honest Action - DIE HARD
Every audience member is acutely aware of how unscathed the heroes are by the various beatings and punishing fracases into which they dive. Often times, these actors walk away unscathed—or if scathed, it’s cut right above the eyebrow closed by a butterfly stitch or else shot in the shoulder but oddly doesn’t slow them down at all.
And yet it’s been pretty proven that viewers like their heroes to feel pain in fights. Not for creepy sadistic reasons, but because it humanizes them and people sympathize with their torment. There are many factors that went into making DIE HARD a classic (some unintentional elements as well, which I’ll be discussing in a post quite soon!), but one of its stalwart aspects for the first three entries is that Bruce Willis’ John McClane gets his ass WHOOPED.
And it all starts with an incredibly relatable feeling—stepping up on broken glass. Yes, it’s shards upon shards of broken glass, but it’s not hard to make the leap from the one stabbing into multiple stabbings along the sole. We may not know what it’s like to get shot at by a guy who looks like Huey Lewis (though if you do, please write in: admin@neonsplatter.com), but many of us know how much it hurts to have that glass wedge its way deep into your footsies.
(Yet another sidenote: would DIE HARD be better if they referred to them as footsies or worst? I think worse when Willis did it, but better when Rickman has to say it. “It’s not his footsies that are his weakness…it’s his wife!” Right? Gold.)
A small cottage industry has spring up on YouTube of trained professionals assessing the validity of various aspects of TV shows and films. This also includes looking at the amount of injuries that characters sustain in the course of a given movie.
Probably the best known version of this is the videos on HOME ALONE where it’s been revealed that the Wet Bandits would’ve died many, many times over. Which also leads to one of the best sequences in BETTER WATCH OUT, but we’ll leave that to Eric to cover on December 22 (stay tuned!).
Everyone’s favorite long-suffering NYC cop who was expecting a good time out on the coast gets this treatment as Screen Junkies’ “Honest Action” series takes a look out how John McClane would’ve fared with all of these rough and/or tumble situations being thrown his way.
Not to give anything away, but it’s unlikely he would’ve been as spry in Chernobyl in that one sequel. Yeah, the one DIE HARD you didn’t watch? He went to Chernobyl. Stupid. It’s a stupid movie.
Anyways, enjoy this bit from almost eight years ago on Screen Junkies and look for other installments on their channel.
Thank you to Michael Scott for sending this my way and making me hip to it.