DIE HARD 2 (1990)

The Top 5 Bureaucratic Heroes of
DIE HARD 2: DIE HARDER

‘Tis the season for many of us to be in the airport. Or on the tarmac. Or circling to land. And what better way to celebrate Christmastime than by watching DIE HARD 2: DIE HARDER (1990), wherein John McClane (Bruce Willis) must rescue his beloved wife and everyone en route to Dulles airport, which has been taken over by fake domestic terrorists.

Three things make this time of year in the airport hellish for me personally:

1. I have significant travel anxiety

2. I have significant holiday anxiety

3. I’ve been Arab in the Airport since before 2001

These stressors compound, and you better believe I would have been the first one to snitch out that old bitch with the taser in her pocketbook (Jeanne Bates). I will never get over the fact that, in 1990, this granny can get a cattleprod through security but ya girl is still “randomly selected” for oversized shampoo bottles.

(Atlanta TSA are forever holding up my DevaCurl detangling shampoo like, “What is this, ma’am?” and I’m like, “You just pulled me out of the line to feel up this birds’ nest on top of my head, what do YOU think it is?”)

Anyway.

Epic revenge fantasies like the one depicted in DIE HARD 2 are exactly the sort of thing the mind unravels into under these stressors, and the main takeaway is that DIE HARD 2 might be a silly adventure action epic, but it is also a swan song for the unsung heroes of bureaucracy.

Even those of us who work as bureaucrats hate the concept of bureaucracy. Sure, it works in theory, when all the cogs are operating as needed, but we cogs almost never work as needed because a machine like bureaucracy doesn’t allow for the human condition. On the Dungeons & Dragons alignment scale, bureaucrats should be lawful neutral. The problem is, in a country like America that touts itself as a meritocracy, individuals are almost never lawful neutral. It’s not in our nature. We’re taught that ambition is a virtue, and that disinclines to be neutral on anything at all.

More often than not, we see the lawful EVIL side of the bureaucrat (think about the last time you went to the DMV. Or the post office. Or got stopped by TSA for your shampoo bottle). Even the other bureaucrats think of each other that way—case in point? Colonel Stuart (William Sadler) asking as he strolls through the airport after a Christmas morning session of naked tai chi, “How’s the security around here?” And his crony answering, “A joke.”

The thing is, even the military (which is what Colonel Stuart got kicked out of for going rogue) operates under bureaucratic principles—which is why John McClane takes so long to realize that Major Grant (John Amos) was not, actually, “(McClane’s) kind of asshole.” He is an annoying bureaucrat as McClane assumed all along, but he’s not neutral—he’s flipped to go rogue with Stuart!

So, while we all know John McClane is the vigilante hero—and who among us is not a sucker for a vigilante beatdown?—this movie really highlights your casual heroes who make that kind of justice possible. So with no further ado, I present the Top 5 Bureaucratic Heroes of DIE HARD 2:

 5. Sgt. Al Powell (Reginald VelJohnson)

It’s true that Officer Powell’s true shining moment is at the end of DIE HARD, but here, we see him back to desk work. He’s not working a beat anymore, but he is behind a desk, this time with a promotion. Powell is the one that McClane calls to run the fingerprints, the one who’s holding it down, as always, because you know what actually solves crimes? DESK WORK. A Merry Christmas to you, Sergeant!

4. The Good Journalist, Samanthan “Sam” Coleman (Sheila McCarthy)

Oh, Sam. Everyone’s telling you to fuck off, but you are quite literally just trying to do your job. It is her job, like the Bad Journalist, Richard Thornburg (William Atherton) says, to “Notice things.” And you DO, Sam. You DO!

You just get thwarted because you’re ethical at your job: you don’t want to show things merely to show them, merely to illustrate that you noticed and Told Us So. No one likes a know it all, Sam, but thank you for your journalistic integrity! 

3. The Salty Stewardesses (Sherry Bilsing, Karla Tamburrelli, Felicity Waterman, and Amanda Hillwood). I love a Viper Den like this one even more than vigilante justice, and I knew I would enjoy Sherry Bilsing’s performance the moment that Thornburg told her he had a restraining order on Holly McClane (Bonnie Bedelia). She walked over and asked conspiratorially, “What did you do?” When Holly McClane explains she knocked his teeth out, Salty Stewardess #1 asks, “Would you like some champagne?”

Note: My only real critiques of the film are that—

1) they didn’t bump Holly to Business Class because of the restraining order and leave Thornburg to simmer in his own farts in coach.

2) the old lady with the taser never used it. Not even on Thornburg. Don’t these writers know the rule of Chekov’s gun?

2. Chief Engineer Leslie Barnes (Art Evans)

I learned this about bureaucracy when I worked in hospitality: there are some jobs that, if you’re doing them correctly, seamlessly, render you invisible. Chief Engineer Leslie Barnes uses this invisibility for good—in fact, he’s the one who figures out how to get these crappy radios and computers to work in their favor. Thank you, Chief Engineer Leslie Barnes, for representing nerds of color everywhere!

1. Marvin, “Just the Janitor” (Tom Bower). One thing that really holds up in the first two DIE HARDs is the representation: they cast people of color as geniuses. The women characters are often some of the strongest. The terrorist-antagonists they feature are not Arab. I personally appreciate the inversion of these stereotypes.

One other inversion that I love is that of Marvin, who calls himself “just the Janitor”. If you’ve ever known anyone who has served in this capacity, then you know that they know fucking everything about the building they work in. Custodians are truest forms of knowledge when it comes to the legwork of movies like this—and in real life. Marvin is no exception. He’s filed the maps of the airport in his own esoteric system, and he’s the one who makes it so that everyone else is able to be a hero.

For all these reasons, DIE HARD 2: DIE HARDER is not only a continuation of the ultimate Christmastime saga, but a friendly, seasonal reminder to TIP YOUR HANDY MAN, YOUR TRASH COLLECTOR, YOUR MAIL LADY. They work hard for you year-round, but you never know when they will help you foil a heist. It’s nice to be on their Nice List.