Let's Talk - Movies

Die Hard (1988) - Scene-By-Scene Breakdown

• Just Curious Media • Episode 8

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Let's Talk - Movies
Episode 08: Die Hard (1988) - Scene-By-Scene Breakdown

Jason Connell and Bryan Beasley break down the classic movie and talk about Bruce Willis becoming a star, the XMAS movie debate, and 80's douchebags.

Synopsis: An NYPD officer tries to save his wife and several others taken hostage by German terrorists during a Christmas party at the Nakatomi Plaza in Los Angeles.

Director: John McTiernan
Writer: Roderick Thorp (novel), Jeb Stuart (screenplay), Steven E. de Souza (screenplay)
Cinematographer: Jan de Bont
Cast: Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, Reginald VelJohnson, Alan Rickman, Paul Gleason, De'voreaux White, William Atherton
Composer: Michael Kamen

Original Episode: S01E08

Recorded: 12-12-20
Studio: Just Curious Media
https://www.JustCuriousMedia.com/

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Jason Connell:

Welcome to Just curious media. This is let's talk movies. And I'm Jason Connell on the show today I'm joined by special guest Brian Beasley.

Bryan Beasley:

Hey, Jason, how you doing boss?

Jason Connell:

Doing good man here our repeat guest and I'm so excited to have you back.

Bryan Beasley:

Man. Well, I'm excited to be back when you pitched me risky business, which was the podcast I was on last time. I was like, man, what do you do diehard? Please bring me back. And so I've been on cloud nine all week excited to come back and talk about the greatest Christmas movie of all time. Diehard?

Jason Connell:

Yes, Brian, you were pitching me die hard. Before we record a risky business pitch and a hard and it just so happened This is Season One of Let's Talk movies. And it's 10 different movies from the 80s each a different year. And I needed a movie for 1988. And it just so happened that I wanted it to be diehard. Tis the season Brian

Bryan Beasley:

100%.

Jason Connell:

So the movie today is diehard 1980, eights, action packed, super fun movie. Never stop thinking about it.

Bryan Beasley:

I mean, honestly, it's the it's one of the greatest films of all time. It really

Jason Connell:

is. And I had I talked to another friend of mine this week, he went to film school. And he was like, oh, yeah, they preached that in film school. And I was like, you know, I want to ask for Brian got the love for it from your time at NYU. Did you learn a lot about it there?

Bryan Beasley:

I did. It definitely was like, you know, it was only a few years old. By the time I went to NYU film school. And it was with anyone who wanted to make action movies. We were all just trying to make the next a die hard. I mean, I literally made I actually had forgotten about this. I made a film called dorm hard NYU, which is just for whatever reason terrorists wanted to take over a college dorm and the main character who is wearing a wife beater and the whole thing I've completely forgotten that actually

Jason Connell:

Brian, where can we see that movie?

Bryan Beasley:

Dorm heart is definitely on YouTube somewhere. Dorm. It's a deep search, you're gonna have to fire I think all right, I think it's got 31 views, but enjoy. I

Jason Connell:

cannot wait. Well, this diehard was directed by John McTiernan. And it was written by Roderick Thorpe, he wrote the novel, and the screenplay was written by Jeff Stewart and Stephen E. de Souza. And we'll get into them more later, which is kind of our pattern here. We're going to bang out the credits and some of the stuff and then we'll get into the crew before we get into the beats of the movie play by play scene by scene. Extensive breakdown. This is what we do on Let's Talk movies, as you know, deep dives, and the genre is action thriller. Pretty accurate. I'd say action thriller indeed. You could throw a little comedy in there but comedy relief happens. And big doses here for sure. And the ratings I'll let you guess the rankings, Brian, the IMDb Rating, go ahead. Do you know it?

Bryan Beasley:

Gosh, cuz it's an action film. I'm gonna go a little lower than I mean, it was a 10 for me, but I'm gonna say it's like 758 point

Jason Connell:

two. Okay, there. Yeah, it's nice. Well, IMDb is you know, it's tougher, great, tougher scale. So that is a good score. Indeed. Now, Rotten Tomatoes. What do you think?

Bryan Beasley:

I'll go I'll stick with my seven 590 4% No, love it. Yeah, job. Everybody is high five to the world. Yes.

Jason Connell:

The movie came out July 20 1988. And Brian, I'm happy to say I saw it in the theater. As soon as it came out.

Bryan Beasley:

I did to 88 How old were you in 88? And

Jason Connell:

88? I would have been 17.

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah, I think I was I think I was 14. So a little too young to be seeing a radar movie. And actually, we were this came out in the summer, right? Yes. Yeah, July right. Yeah. And we were actually on vacation in Crested Butte that summer. And my parents dropped me and my younger brothers to go see Big Top peewee. Oh, yeah, a classic sequel to a PB airman's big adventure, which was absolutely horrible. But it's only that movie was only 80 minutes long. And my parents had gone in to see this movie diehard knew nothing about it. Me and my brothers sneak in. It's right in the scene, where the LAPD has their RV as we will get into, and me and my brothers watched the whole movie from that point on and we made our parents take us back the next night and watch the whole movie, because we were like, we don't understand what's going on. We love this. This is amazing. So it obviously made a big impression on me and my two younger brothers. Yeah.

Jason Connell:

And they went and saw your parents wouldn't sell big peewee just because they didn't want to see diehard again.

Bryan Beasley:

No, I thought again, no, no one was going back to see a lot of good talk about big Tapi we were doing the podcasts on big top here. Yeah,

Jason Connell:

that's a different podcast altogether. It's a different show. Really quickly. I have to correct myself. Since this came out July 20 1988. I was still 16 I would turn And, oh, I would turn 17 on July 31. Now I think I saw this literally that first week. Now that's assuming Tulsa had it that week. So I'd have to go back to My Tickets tab, which I have a pretty healthy collection of old ticket stubs to really see when I saw it, because I could excel in August 1 or second. But anyway, just to clear things up there. But yeah, never stopped thinking about it was in the theater. You know, when you're in the theater, and you're, you're smiling like ear to ear, like, this is incredible. And you're even talking to your friends, I was there on a date, actually. It's like, This is unbelievable. You know, those moments when you have that, like I had that most recently, when I saw once upon a time in Hollywood, when we could still see movies in the theater. It's like, this is an experience. This is incredible. And I had it with diehard for sure.

Bryan Beasley:

Once I don't recommend really kind of hits his stride as the bad guy. I was like, I we're seeing something this is a different kind of action. Right? Like we're seeing something different, like especially we're playing chess against each other. And most of times when he goes to an action movie, they're playing tic tac toe. So

Jason Connell:

yeah, that's true. And now the budget for the movie. You want to take a shot at this. I bet it had a budget 60 million. Now this is 1987 when they made it, so cut that in half 28 million. So in that range. Wow. Yeah, it's amazing. It's all on screen.

Bryan Beasley:

I mean, they freaking blew up a building. Yeah, some of it was a model. But you know, helicopters. It's all practical at the subs practical. True. So the

Jason Connell:

US gross, which is not worldwide. And who knows how outdated this number is and IMDb with all the revenue streams and everything else, but it grossed almost $84 million. So if you can do that kind of return on investment. There's a reason why this thing spawned so many sequels. And it's still alive today. In fact, there's even the Die Hard battery commercials running today. Right? So what is that tell you about a movie that came out in 88? This thing has

Bryan Beasley:

staying power. Bruce Willis is still getting paid? Yes.

Jason Connell:

So the cash for this movies we've already talked about. The main guy is Bruce Willis. He plays John McClane star making roll star makira. I mean, he was doing Moonlighting. That was his launch really TV show if you don't know about it, and then he would go on to do so many movies. I mean, all the diehards diehard to Die Hard With a Vengeance, Live Free or Die Hard, A Good Day to Die Hard. And yes, it just goes on and on. And then of course, he did Pulp Fiction, the sixth sense and so many other movies that you've seen him in. He's been nominated for four Golden Globes, and he actually won one for moonlighting in 1987. I didn't know that. Hmm. And then we have Bonnie Bedelia. She plays Holly Janiero, McLean, more on that later, she was also an diehard two and presumed innocent. Then we have Reginald evil Johnson, who plays Sergeant al Powell. And you recognize him right away from family matters.

Bryan Beasley:

You bet him in Urkel going Yes, they

Jason Connell:

were going head to head always he is the father you always wanted to have he's great actor. And it was also on Mike and Molly had a big run on that show as well. So really a TV actor who pop up and movies here and there, and a wonderful choice for this movie more about that later as well. And that leads me to the last one I'll cover now and then we'll talk about the other actors as they come up in the movie, but this is none other than the late and great actor Alan Rickman in his first movie, yeah, his first movie, which is hard to believe he was 41 years old, gets this role of a lifetime. And that role is none other than Hans Gruber. Probably one of the greatest bad man ever. 100% Brilliant. He's calm cool, collected charismatic, so villainous, but Yeah, almost just loved him anyway, which is hard to pull off. And he's also a movies like Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves Galaxy Quest, which is a movie that I think is fabulous and a lot of fun. Love Actually. And like so many Harry Potter movies,

Bryan Beasley:

all the Harry Potter resume, my friend, he was like a massive twist on his character. I

Jason Connell:

have never seen the Harry Potter movies, which is something waiting for me someday. And he also won a Golden Globe for Rasputin in 1997. So a little bit more on the crew course John McTiernan who we talked about a minute ago, but he directed movies Brian like predator Hunt for Red October The Thomas Crown Affair I mean, this is a first rate director

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah, he's an action director to the tee and he got all those in a row he did predator one year and then the next year he does die hard. And then two years later he does hunt for in October and those all three of those movies completely hold up today. They're not there Class A action thrillers really well done all three of them yes, they

Jason Connell:

all have high repeat viewability I watched predator anytime and I even referenced in in this podcast just wait. And the hunt for October is just Connery verse Baldwin so so good. Oh my god. Yeah, he's

Bryan Beasley:

he's Excellent staging action but also being able to let the story unfold and not letting the action get in the way of a good story. Yeah.

Jason Connell:

You can't have a great movie like this without good producing and he had Joel Silver producer did so many movies, I would take a whole podcast to cover his filmography, but to name a few The Matrix trilogy, all the lethal weapon movies and anything else in between.

Bryan Beasley:

He was 80s action for sure. Super 80s Anything,

Jason Connell:

his name is on anything from the 80s. And then there was Lawrence Gordon, who's also incredibly prolific, who produced watchmen lock up predator as well. So he worked with McLaren on that, and also his credentials go on and on and on. So these old school producers, it's like they just did everything in Hollywood. Like yeah, I got it. I'm on it. And wow, amazing. And back to the writers because I want to give them their nod as writers sometimes are overlooked but Jeb Stuart also wrote the fugitive lockup another 48 hours all great fun films and high action as well good character pieces. And then there's Steven E D'souza he wrote the original 48 hours and then commando The Running Man diehard to so these guys just like the producers really covered so many movies in that in that genre and that era,

Bryan Beasley:

and they crush it you know, Jeb comes in he lays the groundwork from getting it from the book to you know the screen and then he's actually let go and Stevens brought in to kind of do the comedy Polish Yes. Pretty much all the follow Great. Funny lines were written by D'Souza.

Jason Connell:

Yeah, no, I read that. And I saw that on that documentary as well. It's so true. He they brought him in to punch it up because it had a great script, but it was missing the jokes. And I'm telling you it diehard has them, and sometimes it's from an obscure character. They'll deliver these great jokes.

Bryan Beasley:

You're totally right. Like, every time, we kind of like a character kind of falls by the wayside. A new character comes into the forefront and they're just dropping hilarious lines, or doing like just stupid enough stuff that it's still believable that you're like, oh my god, that guy's a total jackass. And that's what that's what's so fun about this is you never, it's, it's you know, we meet our guy, that limo driver up front, but then he moves to the side. And then in comes, you know, the next clown that you get to laugh at. And the comedy is just as action packed as the action itself.

Jason Connell:

Yeah, totally. There's so many moving parts in this movie. And I hadn't seen it in a while I really hadn't. And it was great to go back and revisit it. And of course, for this podcast, we really cover it. And I thought, wow, yeah, it's like an Robert Altman movie. There's so many guys going on. And they go on the fringe, and they come back and and Oh, I forgot. I like that guy. And LS comes back, whatever it is, and we'll get into it. But it is an amazing piece. It's well orchestrated.

Bryan Beasley:

They all meant comparison. That's actually really good. JASON Yeah. The I never thought of it like that. But you're completely right. And they're all even though we're only getting bits and pieces of some of these characters. They're actually really well drawn. And some of these actors we haven't actually really seen again, right. But no one was weak. Like no, like, even the guy who comes out of the manhole at one point, yes.

Jason Connell:

I get into him, shut it down. Now. You love it. He's great. And I get into that guy cuz I recognized him immediately. Yes. So true. Well said, I'm glad you gave him a shout out. That's great. And then quickly, the last few on the crew list. I'd be remiss if we didn't talk about genderbent the cinematographer oh my gosh, this guy talked about action, who later became a director he DP movies like The Hunt for Red October. So he also worked with materion Flatliners Basic Instinct. And then he directed speed and Twister shot in our home state. And incredible I mean, this guy knows action and knows how to capture it. So this is a murderer's row of crew. Here, you can't when

Bryan Beasley:

it comes to action, ad stuff, it is murderer's row. And going back to John du Pont, like you were saying like his first movie was speed and speed is basically diehard on a bus. Yeah, he knew he, he didn't get outside his comfort zone one bit. He's like this works. Let's just do this whole delay.

Jason Connell:

In fact, I read that he was stuck in an elevator while making this movie and then had the idea to use that in the opening of speed. So how great is that? If you haven't seen speeder, watch it it's fun. It holds up as well. And now the editors because you know you and I both done our fair share of editing, so we gotta give a shout out. Let's give these guys credit together. John F link. He did other movies such as predator commando Roadhouse, and he was nominated for an Oscar for this movie diehard amazing and he shared that nomination with Frank J Rasta. He did other movies such as Total Recall Basic Instinct with John Dubon doing the DP work there. Robocop and Roadhouse. So he worked with link on Roadhouse as well. And like I said, they shared the nomination didn't win, but hey, they deserved it. And there was other Oscar nominations just for the categories I'll mention best sound, best effects, sound effects, editing and best effects visual effects, which there's a ton in this movie.

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah, there really is. I mean, the, all the way down the board, like you said, these guys are top of their game. I mean, it's the soundscape that they put together is on this is pretty amazing. And you know, even the editing, like, some people would be like, Oh, that must be good. It's probably pretty easy. It's just you know, guys shooting guns, like, I mean, they're in the stairways. They're in the elevator shafts. And if you pay attention you can they're exactly where they need to be. The characters are exactly where they need to be. And it's in the building has a 3d element to it.

Jason Connell:

Yes, Bruce Willis. It's easy to overlook the performance, but he's amazing in this movie.

Bryan Beasley:

He's amazing. He really is. He's funny. He's because this whole film is. It's not the macho hero, not orange Schwarzenegger coming into the chrysalis by the antihero. He doesn't even want to do it. He knows I remember the first 30 minutes of the movie after the terror shows up. All he trying to do is call the police. He's just trying to call back up. Yeah. And America when the police do get there, he he's like, you know, they're they tell him like, hey, take a break. He's like, they're all yours. Yeah, they're all yours, but they're incompetent. So John McLean has to step up and kick out.

Jason Connell:

Well, Brian, he doesn't even want to be in California. He'd rather just be in New York. He's just pissed that he's even here. So he's,

Bryan Beasley:

he's he's a fish out of water hungry solidly.

Jason Connell:

So yeah, another device. This movie has like device on top of a device on top of a device, but they all work. So here we go. beat by beat scene by scene through the movie. All right. So we start with a plane landing at LAX and we meet John McClane, although we don't learn his name yet. And Brian, what else do we know about him right away?

Bryan Beasley:

He does not like fine.

Jason Connell:

Absolutely right.

Bryan Beasley:

He's very uneasy flying and his seatmate gives them a little grief, who's probably a well seasoned business traveler and gives him a little hint on how to relax when he gets back to the hotel. Yes, which we don't understand at the time is a huge device that we got to we got to get McLean shoes off. And this is he tells him to make fists with his toes on the rug. And McClain looks at him like, What are you talking about? He's like, trust me. Take your shoes off and make fist with your toes. It'll calm you down.

Jason Connell:

Absolutely. And he does do that. And that does lead us to him be barefoot for most of the movie, but I digress. We also learned that he's a cop for 11 years in New York. We learned that he's a father or a husband. Because he's got this stuff bear with him. And he's got a flirtatious eye the way he looked at the little stewardess and a flight attendant there, you could tell John McClane likes to look at the ladies.

Bryan Beasley:

He's a handsome man.

Jason Connell:

He's a handsome man. So now we cut to an office Christmas party at the Nakatomi building. And Ellis is hitting on Holly McLean. And she's calling home. We'll get into more in depth on these people pretty soon but we're just kind of doing the setups if you will. And then on her desk you see a kind of a photo and you see in the photo home Brian,

Bryan Beasley:

we got the happy family we got John McClane and his wife beautiful Holly janeiro McLean and little loosen McLean and, and they have a boy to I don't know, I can't remember the son's name is I can see him in the fourth

Jason Connell:

film. Yeah, exactly. That's one that goes crazy. That film in my opinion, but that's for another show. And yeah, that's a great way to set up. We don't know his name yet. And then you see her and then you see the photo and I love that they did start piecing it together that way. It's nice, nice cutting good editing guys. Instead of the exposition. Just show me those little beats and I'll figure it out. So I like that a lot. So now we're at LAX and there's a sign J. McClain. Now Brian, have you ever been picked up in an airport with your name on?

Bryan Beasley:

I have not had I never It sounds very VIP.

Jason Connell:

It's so big time. I had to have a once in a film festival and I thought I have arrived. It's a big thing. It really is a big big baller moment. I

Bryan Beasley:

gotta tell you. You had your own Argyle.

Jason Connell:

I sure did. But very different night for the both of us. So Argyle is there. Yes, Argyle, we meet our limo driver, and is played by Devereaux White, who was on ahead of the class. He had a big run on that hit show, which I used to watch. So he plays a noisy talkative limo driver and used to be a cab driver expects

Bryan Beasley:

a little chit chat

Jason Connell:

total and he's asking McLain all sorts I made a ton of questions. Brian, you know he's really inquisitive. And I That's how we're learning some of this exposition, though. What and what do we learn from it?

Bryan Beasley:

We're learning that his marriage is on the rocks. He thought he was going to come out here to California and and fail and it's quite the opposite. She's a huge success in California. The Nakatomi company and he's very begrudgingly come out for Christmas. He doesn't even know if he's gonna stay with with her at the house that they have with their kids. Um, so he's already kind of in a grumpy mood. And California itself just doesn't fit him. I mean, he is constantly saying, California there, ya know, blonde at the airport jumping into her boyfriend's arms and when he finally does get to the Christmas party he gets he gets a little kiss from another intoxicated gentleman and he's just not having it

Jason Connell:

now. In fact, the song that comes on as he drops him off at the plaza is Christmas and Hollis by Run DMC

Bryan Beasley:

again, another hint to why this is a Christmas movie. Yes,

Jason Connell:

exactly. In case you forgot. And then Argyle offers to do what

Bryan Beasley:

he's like, Hey, man, if it doesn't work out, I'll hit down. I'm gonna go park this limo in the parking garage, and I'll be down there waiting for you. And if you need to, you need some help. We can go have a night just the two of us. Yes, best friends.

Jason Connell:

This guy's young. It's his first time out on the limo. He's got John McClane, as the client is like, Don't forget me about the tip. So he's gonna wait around and see if McLean strikes out with his wife. And he'll call him to let him know stay or go, essentially. So great guy. You know his way. You've got one pound California already, which is awesome. Now we're at the Nakatomi Plaza. And McClain walks in and I love this old school touchscreen directory. And

Bryan Beasley:

it was state of the art at the time, by the way, and

Jason Connell:

my clients like cute toy. And of course, he looks up on screen. He can't find Holly McLean because

Bryan Beasley:

she has got it under her maiden name of generic. Yes, she showed us out. Yeah. And you know, it's really good. They don't overstate it like no, we see that he looks up a claim, and we don't know nothing there. So he pushes in the Jeep and you see the discus on his face, but it's not like he's sitting there telling the security guard choose using my man. They don't over explain it. It's just a little hint of the argument that's about to happen between the two of them. Yeah.

Jason Connell:

Had he been in the limo longer. I'm sure our guy would have gotten out of it. So and he says she's on the 30th floor. The party. They're the only ones left in the building. So it a little thing like that, like Okay, so the building's empty, except for that party. Yeah,

Bryan Beasley:

you're totally right. He also kind of off the cuff mentioned something about the buildings new. There's lots of little bugs and totally, no,

Jason Connell:

it's good. And we watch it later. And you're like, oh, there, it's all right there right in front of me. And this is a swanky affair. As he gets to the party, and we have an orchestra. It looks like to me like 100 plus people, but later the count is much lower because they probably couldn't afford to keep this many people as hostages. But I don't want to get ahead of myself, but it was a big time affair. And then as you just said, I love how the stranger comes up and kisses McLean, which is CO funny. And what does he say Brian?

Bryan Beasley:

California fuckin California.

Jason Connell:

So funny. Yeah, this random stranger. He had a few too many drinks at the old Christmas party, and he comes up and kisses a stranger.

Bryan Beasley:

Once again. He's a handsome man. It's his own fault. It's

Jason Connell:

true. He is. So now we meet Joe Takagi, and you probably recognize him from tons of movies. But his real name is James. She gotta rest in peace. He was on shows like Simon and Simon and Beverly Hills 90210. And it's really great in this movie. He's a bigwig at the company. And you know, he's in charge. He's Holly's boss. And so he's still in this big shindig. And they meet for the first time, which is kind of nice, because you can kind of tell that they've heard of John McClane, but they've never met John McClane.

Bryan Beasley:

Matter of fact, to cocky comes up to him. It's like, oh, you're John McClane. Like we know they were expecting him. And there was probably a whole thing because they, they almost in a weird way, roll out the red carpet for him, showing him her office. Yes. I think that they probably you know, Holly has probably had some candid discussions that her husband's not too high on her working for this company. And they're like, We need her at this company. So yes, let's try to woo him a little bit. Yeah, that's

Jason Connell:

well said, Brian. That's exactly the sense. I got two especially from Joe Ellis, different story. And speaking of malice, who's like the biggest douchebag in this movie. He is played by heart Bogner, who's really good at these types of roles in general. And I remember him from Super Girl, and one of my favorite movies growing up breaking away. And incredible Coming of Age movie. Do check it out, please. It has so has Dennis Quaid in his first movie, but he also plays a jerk in that movie. So he really nails it good. But I love how he's doing blow on Holly's desk as they walk out

Bryan Beasley:

to God. He's like, Yeah, it's Holly's husband, Holly's policeman, husband and

Jason Connell:

McLean's on it in a heartbeat. It's like you miss some there, buddy? Because he's trying to clean up but you know, he's the smartest guy in the room. You can size people up in two seconds. He's in New York cop Come on. But yeah, pretty funny. And then they go on to talk about the buildings still under construction. And now we learn that Takagi likes to tell jokes, Brian.

Bryan Beasley:

He's a funny man.

Jason Connell:

He's busting some Pearl Harbor jokes out.

Bryan Beasley:

So Oh, yeah, you know that, you know, you forget that in the 80s there was a bit of a xenophobia thing against Japan. Yeah, it was like, because they'd come in and they were I remember they were buying up Diamond Head and Hawaii and buying up Manhattan property. And so yeah, he delivers this and very, like off the cuff just under the radar a little bit. It's like Pearl Harbor didn't work out. So we got to a tape deck. Yeah. It also is a little bit of a time capsule of what people thought of Japan, back in the 80s, which is kind of I guess what we would think of the Chinese now. Yeah, yeah.

Jason Connell:

So then Holly enters the room and changes the dynamic a little bit and what goes on now

Bryan Beasley:

she sees him. She's like, Oh, I'm so glad you made the flight. And she kind of apper you know, very slowly comes across the room, like, are we embracing and they kind of kiss on the cheek. And then of course, slimeball LS is like, oh, you know, we gave her a watch, you know, for Christmas, basically. And, you know, for all the good work, and he's like, okay, and she's a little embarrassed to show it to him. I think there's, there's, there's different dynamics of like, she's obviously more successful than he is now. And Alice keeps pushing it is like, it's a Rolex. And basically, McLean's like, I'll see it later. Like, you know, it's cool. But that's a huge moment. Actually, that watch comes into play, majorly. And there's also just, there's just a theme of like, materialism that's going on here. Yeah, I'm saying that these people are working into the wee hours of Christmas Eve. There's the blue collar. And the elites. There's a lot of different levels going on here. And it kind of all merges at this, this Christmas party. And this is even before the terrorists show up.

Jason Connell:

Yeah. Ellis can afford blow Brian. So yeah, he's in a holiday category. He's a different tax bracket. This guy. That's right. So McLean goes to wash up and Holly joins him. He's like in an executive bathroom or something very nice. And of course, they don't really see eye to eye right now, in this particular moment. They don't even live together. So they begin to argue,

Bryan Beasley:

yeah, and it's an argument they've had for the months that she's been out there. In the months before she left when she probably got the gig. She says it herself. Like we never, you know, we never finished this talking about this. We never finished having this argument. And of course, he throws the whole name change thing in there. And she says something about it's a Japanese company, and I think a married woman. He's like, You are a married woman. You're married to me and like, you didn't miss my name unless you were signing checks. So yeah, it ended my friend who knows where this argument would have ended. But yeah,

Jason Connell:

well, it's going very Kramer versus Kramer here. I'm literally concerned what kind of movie this is going to be. But then it shifts immediately. Because we see a Pacific courier moving truck cruising down the street, and Avenue of the Stars, most likely that street, and there's a Mercedes, and they all arrive at Nakatomi. Plaza. Then what happens?

Bryan Beasley:

Then basically we we see our first two bad guys, we get Theo and Carl, Theo is we will soon find out is the African American tech genius. And Carl is the man of very few words, but is basically the ruthless right hand man to Hans Gruber. And once again, going back to what we were talking about the comedy aspects. Like we've lost our Guile to the parking garage, in walks Theo, and he's basically he's talking about magic and the Lakers and blah, blah, blah. And the security guards kind of like disoriented of like what's going on. And Carl comes up and puts two bullets in the guy's chest. And without missing a beat the it goes, boom, two points. And you're just like, oh, this is another another character. Yeah. And he was immediately behind the desk, ripping out cords and cutting the communications and the and the alarms and blah, blah. And Carl makes his way to the back and takes out the other security guard. And they are on the way the terrorists have arrived.

Jason Connell:

Yeah. And Carl is so well cast. He's played by Alexander. Good enough. Rest in peace. Yeah,

Bryan Beasley:

so another rip famous Russian ballerina

Jason Connell:

very nice, awesome video of him. Incredible. This guy is huge. He's over six feet looks the part. He's got the long flowing locks. And he's just like strong and tough and he has the great accent. And he was the movies like witness and the money pit among others. And then Theo who we just talked about as well. Clarence Gill yard, Jr. He played sundown in Top Gun.

Bryan Beasley:

Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't put that together. Oh, yeah. Tom

Jason Connell:

Cruise. Let him have it in one particular scene when he told him to engage. But Maverick was a little distraught. And then he was also in the Karate Kid part two. Oh, which I've actually covered on the let's talk Cobra Kai podcast. We've done a deep dive into the sequel and all of the movies to be exact, but he plays gi number one at the bar. And he tries to hit through the panes of ice in which Danielson does a few moments later. So shout out to Clarence

Bryan Beasley:

He's hilarious. There's not a scene that he's not in, where he's not being like a smart aleck or throwing things in people's faces and he's always funny.

Jason Connell:

Yeah, he's great and brilliant. So it really good character. And I love how Carl uses the hockey puck explosive right away on the second security guard. And I gotta say, Brian, probably didn't need to use it. That security guard was just loafing around looking at the elevator. He could have walked around the corner and blasted him but they wanted to show us that these guys have some cool toys.

Bryan Beasley:

Yes, they're tech savvy, and they are completely prepared. Well, we that's I mean, that's basically what we see is they before they even get to the party. This thing has been planned out to a tee they know exactly how many security guards are they know exactly where all the communication? Tech is, what wires to cut, how to get into the garage, how to get into the elevators, they know at all,

Jason Connell:

they're anticipating FBIs next move. That's how good they are. I mean, that's

Bryan Beasley:

their plan is basically hinging on the FBI showing up

Jason Connell:

if it wasn't for that John McClane could have gotten away with it. No fly in the ointment. Alright, so not the back of the truck opens and the team exits. And Brian, I do not see a ambulance in the back of the truck. But I do see a team.

Bryan Beasley:

It's by far the biggest goof in the entire movie. That's alright. That's alright. And Jason, do you know why there's an ambulance in the back of that truck? I don't think it was written yet. Because they hadn't written the ending. When they started shooting, can you imagine that? Can you imagine?

Jason Connell:

Is the same way? Or does this Oh, I'm gonna do today? Well, I mean, I wrote this last night, Carl, what did you come up with? So this is how it works. Brian on some of these classic movies like, oh, yeah, we got ourselves in a corner. We got to get ourselves out of it. So yeah, I don't even care about that crew comes out and they look menacing. And today and they have a leader who we don't know their names that when I watched this for notes, I think back to not knowing anything, what do I know as an audience member? And I'm just trying to learn as I go, so we didn't see them coming out. And then we see Theo shutting the building down. Yep, locking it up. And as you mentioned, these guys very methodical. There's nothing they haven't thought about. But now we cut to McLean. And he's doing the trick. Fists with your toes. Yes. And it's working seems to be working.

Bryan Beasley:

It is where he actually says Damn, who would have thought watching that as a 14 year old going like, what is this? Is this something that adults do? And as an adult, I don't even totally understand it. But just some weird thing that some guy told them during the plane. But again, it's all about getting John McClane barefoot.

Jason Connell:

I'm doing this right now, Brian, I can tell. I've so calm and peace with myself. And this podcast. So now Carl knocks out the phone lines with a chainsaw nearly kills his brother doing so I mean, this guy Carl, Man, this guy is one big, scary guy.

Bryan Beasley:

And also shows that he has a somewhat of a playful side that he's messing with his brother the way he is.

Jason Connell:

Yeah. And so now the rest of the team is doing what?

Bryan Beasley:

So then, yeah, they all kind of take their positions. And again, no one's no one's barking out orders. This was all planned. You got the view? Who is terrorists? I have that written down. Does

Jason Connell:

he not look like Huey Lewis?

Bryan Beasley:

He's totally who he is.

Jason Connell:

Oh my gosh,

Bryan Beasley:

the security outfit and he's sitting up front, making sure that everything looks proper. Yep. And then the rest of them jump in the elevator and head up to the Christmas party

Jason Connell:

up to the 30th floor. They're headed and some McClain is calling Argyle just to let him know probably gonna tell him hey, it's

Bryan Beasley:

all good. Good head on him, buddy.

Jason Connell:

I'll send you a tip about where to Venmo you or Paypal or whatever we do in the 80s. And what happens Brian?

Bryan Beasley:

They get cut off and then boom, guns blazing guns ablaze

Jason Connell:

and sow chaos and Seuss and Brian we see in this movie. Some nudity, live noon. Oh,

Bryan Beasley:

I forgot about that. Yeah. Yeah, they started some of the terrorists they're kind of gathering all the all the hostages in the main lobby room. And so they're going off as to Office. And we know that John McClane is in the last office doing fits with his toes, but they break into one of the earlier offices and looks like two of the two of the employees got a little touchy feely and we're having some good times this is probably a Joel Silver classic like if you're not a girl, run around topless for five seconds, but it does serve a purpose because it the one the lead terrorists going down the hallway, turns around and like gives a look which gives McLean a just enough time to get out of the office and down the stairwell. So he would have been caught. If those if that girl had had her bra, just let me know.

Jason Connell:

Yeah, no, it's great. I just hope both of them are not married to someone else.

Bryan Beasley:

I just hope it's very problems.

Jason Connell:

It was very true. They have much bigger problems. Now, so there's that. But yeah, that moment that beat saved him for sure. He sees an exit strategy. And he's up the stairwell. And he is still barefoot.

Bryan Beasley:

He is barefoot. That's correct. So he

Jason Connell:

finds a phone on floor 31, which is also dead. But Brian, he spots a woman off in another building. And he's saying, think think, and I thought he might try to get her attention. It was just like a woman, that little symbol. While

Bryan Beasley:

there's a lot of discussion about that insert shot of her on the phone. I mean, what it comes down to is just, that's what he needs to do. He's got to figure out a way to communicate outside of the building, because the phone lines have been cut. Yeah,

Jason Connell:

I thought he might shoot something out or do something. But it's almost like,

Bryan Beasley:

there's the I was I can remember when I saw the first 100 times. I was like, Yeah, it's like, what was that? Like? Is he gonna? Yeah, like he's gonna wave over to her or like you said, Yeah, try to shoot something across the way to her.

Jason Connell:

I wouldn't doubt for a second that there's more footage. And it just didn't work. And they just because it felt like really like a hard cut, like, oh, okay, I thought we were exploring this for another moment. But whatever. It's a good cut. And we're out, we probably didn't need to explore that. So now we see the leader of the group, one, Hans Gruber, great name. He's reading from a Bible or so it appears. And he says, Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, due to Nakatomi Corporation's legacy of greed around the globe, they're about to be taught a lesson in the real use of power. You will be witnesses. He is like speaking to the flock. Here.

Bryan Beasley:

He is. He is like, again, that was planned. He had that written down. Yeah, he was he was in it. Basically, it's like, we're not messing around. And they have to project this aspect that they are terrorists. And so terrorists don't show up to steal money out of a vault terrorists show up to cause terror, because there's a political agenda that they have to get across. So all of those hostages, if any of them were going to survive, they would be able to say, Oh, he was preaching from the get go, that the greedy Japanese company had to pay with their lives.

Jason Connell:

Yep. And so this leads us to what

Bryan Beasley:

oh, he has this great scene where he walks around all throughout the hostages, listing the resume the LinkedIn profile, if you will, an impressive one at bat. Geigy, father of five, and no one is standing up, Nick glimpse Alice, he's like me know me,

Jason Connell:

Holly grabs, Joe's arm is like, Don't go,

Bryan Beasley:

she knows that he is most likely doomed if he fesses up but then that's he's the leader like he is the head of the company. And he knows that he might have to sacrifice himself to keep his employees safe. And that's pretty much what he does. He stands up and they take him away. They ashram away.

Jason Connell:

Well, you can see that Hans also walks up to other Japanese gentleman of the proper age and kind of looks at him. And I thought, Is there just not a photo on his dossier as well? There's no image at all.

Bryan Beasley:

That's a good question. Because you're like, I mean, we've just said how prepared these guys are. Yeah. I mean, if he's the head of the American arm of this corporation, you would think that there would be not only photos of him, but like he's been injured. Totally. And can they just get on YouTube now? Can they just Google

Jason Connell:

Hans's? Like now? Just me? I'll break them. I'll find him. They'll probably be several Japanese men there, but I can do this. Okay. Okay.

Bryan Beasley:

I mean, there's just an aspect of him trying to be menacing. Yeah, no, it's

Jason Connell:

a much better scene and I'm walking up to him. It was a great scene, but it just, you know, come on. Surely they know it look like and he's a man of principle. And he'll probably just step up and say, It's me. But there was a photo of him somewhere.

Bryan Beasley:

It also is a great technique for us to care about him. We don't know anything about him. And then when you end with the thing of father of five, yeah, it's like, oh, this is a family man. Like, you know, he's worked as his life to get to the point that he is and yes, and now now he has run into Hans Gruber.

Jason Connell:

Yeah, it wouldn't work the same if when he met John, he just laid all this on him. I'm the father of five I'd say do doshas. This guy No, it works way better in this situation because you're nervous for him and now you like him? Oh, you like him more? You care for him? Yes. And so now McLean is on floor 35 And he sees some bad guys with some guided missiles. So these guys they are loaded up for something and he doesn't know what he's running around just trying to get his bearings hit and they have shoes on

Bryan Beasley:

that's a big thing that's a big thing is like it's also good for us the audience to get our bearings Yeah, like we find out that there's one floor is all construction one floor is like a computer lab. You know, we obviously know that the party is on the floor below him. Yeah, there's access to the roof these as access to the elevator shafts like this is all becomes important. as to where he is the rest of the movie is all cat and mouse. Yeah. And it's all about where you can hide where you can hide. And then, you know, obviously there's the the other floor where the conference room is, and all the models

Jason Connell:

which are coming up to now. Yeah, and very impressive. So yeah, Hans and company take Takagi to his office, I guess it's his office. But McLean's in the background lurking around, but we see these models, and they are impressive. And Hans is impressed by them as well. So now we finally learn of Hans plan.

Bryan Beasley:

And even before we get into the conference room, you know, that whole walk through the models, and that's when when Takagi still thinks they're terrorists, he's like, is this what this is about, about our project in Indonesia? And, you know, Hans has already made a clip about how nice his suit is, and that he has to have those same suits. And that Arafat shops there, and even says it himself. He goes, you know, the fault of my classical education, we immediately see that Hans is extraordinarily smart, you know, I'm saying this guy, this isn't a smash and grab this thing was planned out to a tee, every person that is there underneath him, he probably hand picked for a reason. And we definitely see that they all have like their own little jobs to do and they all know what they're doing. So of course, then they go into the conference room. And basically, he asked them for the his code for the first of seven locks that they have to get through to open the safe. So he's completely confused, like, open the safe. I thought you guys were terrorists.

Jason Connell:

And then of course, Hans to that says, Who said we were terrorist. And that's when it's like, oh, shit, these guys. These guys are that badass? Yeah, I'm impressed by them. And their wherewithal, because they are, they're 10 steps ahead. Even this guy, this guy seems super smart. And he is his track, record his LinkedIn resume, and they're another step above him. And he's like, I don't have that. That's in Japan. I only have so much here. But he's starting to sweat. He knows his life's probably on the line. It's not a good scene.

Bryan Beasley:

No. And he's blown away. Because Hans, you're like you said the plan is, we don't know the full plan. But we the idea of why they're there is for $640 million in bearer bonds. And do you know what a bearer bond is? Jason?

Jason Connell:

Well, I believe that there's a lot of them and risky business. That's right. A lot of bonds and risky business, a lot

Bryan Beasley:

of on bearer bonds, or they actually don't use bearer bonds anymore. But the reason why is because whoever personally has them the bearer of the bond, if you if it's in your possession, it is yours. So there's no safety. There's it's basically like it's a volume thing. So we actually see the bearer bonds there for$100,000 each. So instead of having briefcase after briefcase of $100,000 bills, you have one piece of paper that's worth 100,000. But it's it's no it's just like currency. Like if I have it in my pocket. It belongs to me.

Jason Connell:

Yeah, very true. And pretty impressive. And a smart play. They didn't make it jewels, or diamonds or just usual cash. I love that it was bearer bonds.

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah. And it sounds exotic. And also $640 million. This is 30. This 40 years ago, that's, that's like a billion bucks. Yeah, that's a lot of money. Even

Jason Connell:

then it's a lot of money. Yeah. And then Han says, because this is when you know, the stakes are being raised. He doesn't know like, how serious is this guy? I know I'm here. I surely they need me to get what they want. And Han says so cool, calm and collected. I'm going to count to three, there would not be a four. And then you know, it's for real, Brian. Yeah,

Bryan Beasley:

it's for real and to Gog. He's not having it. He's a he's a good captain. He's going down the ship. Now. Also, I don't know if you notice this, but you've got Theo right there on the computer ready to punch in the code.

Jason Connell:

What's your he's running MS DOS, I believe at the same time I

Bryan Beasley:

think you're right. But Carlos is sitting right there too. And they have they trade little pieces of dialogue that I don't know if you picked up on it. They have a bet on whether to Tagi is going to spill the beans Theo and Carl you're right you're right. So they have a bet whether Hans can actually get him to tell them the code you soon find out that Theo was like I told you so and that was for $1 Very Trading Places of them

Jason Connell:

oh very trading places the good call and they're still are playful about things at other people's expense.

Bryan Beasley:

100% comms even gives them a look of like, come on guys

Jason Connell:

seriously. So this leads to unfortunately,

Bryan Beasley:

to God his demise. He doesn't give up the code. There wasn't a for it was a bullet through his head. And at this point, John McLean has army crawled his way to the outside of the door of the conference room he sees the Kaga get shot and has to immediately make haste and get out of there and as he does so he makes a little noise and Carl comes running out with the guns looking for him but he's he's successfully locked himself into a closet which Carl doesn't seem to mind when he actually jiggles the door. He's just kind of like yeah, whatever. Well, they

Jason Connell:

also they dismiss the noise they dismiss they do

Bryan Beasley:

they dismiss the noises of no big deal. And then we have some fun really important conversation between Theo and Hans, where he's like, now you can break the code, right?

Jason Connell:

You didn't just bring me along from my personality, so

Bryan Beasley:

I might Dortmund personality.

Jason Connell:

But the point from earlier would be Hans is for real. This is one cold blooded killer as if nothing else at like all these guys. And any hostage is fair game,

Bryan Beasley:

the bearer bonds in the safe if you get in his way you were done for Yeah.

Jason Connell:

And so now McClain talks to himself and he's hoping that Argyll heard shots now Brian, I'm sorry, they're on the 30th floor. He's in the parking garage playing some music. So he didn't hear shots. He didn't call the police. But maybe he heard some of the constant gunshots? I'm not sure but probably not. He's way in the bowels of this building. So I doubt it. And now the guys are on the roof. And they're wiring explosives. And you know, these teams, there's so many different groups and they're not all interacting because they are a team. They are a well orchestrated team and they go right in the business and some guys jobs is to wire explosives and other guys are to be fake security guards but so their job open safes, you know some guys are involved in the negotiations where others just they just go to work. And I like that. They're not bitching about their job. They're just they're doing it because a big pay day awaits them all. So then Thiel begins to share just how tricky this is. Brian? Yeah,

Bryan Beasley:

they walk into the safe room. And yeah, he's, he's like, there's seven locks. The first one is his code, which he's pretty confident he can break within 30 minutes. And he does. It's redcastle actually was something I picked up on this last viewing that I don't think I've really noticed. And then he has like a, like a super drill. They don't really get too technical. But basically he drills in there and he is able to unlock the other five locks. But he tells Hans, the seventh lock, it can't be undone from the building. It's a magnetic lock, and there's nothing he can do about it. So and apparently Hans is like, Yep, we've talked about this, we understand it. And and then they have that great scene where they kind of like open the outer door of the safe and they show on the floor before they pan up to show the gigantic like metal door of the safe. Yeah, they show the logo of Nakatomi Corporation and it's a Samurai Helmet. Did you know that?

Jason Connell:

I didn't know that was a samurai. It's a samurai hammer. And there's

Bryan Beasley:

like three dots.

Jason Connell:

Yeah, that's a great logo. That's cool. Well, before we got into the red Castle, which I want to get into, there's one scene before that. But McLean is saying think god dammit think. And I love these shots. Brian. I love the way it's edited together. He looks up sees a sprinkler head looks down, there's a fire alarm. Then we cut to a panel showing floor 32 alarm. I love that kind of pacing. He's like boom, boom. He's got the idea. He's already executed. He's going to alert the fire department come to the building. It's brilliant. And Hans is alerted. But of course Brian like always he's cool, calm and collected and this gives instructions.

Bryan Beasley:

And so it's right just turn off the alarm call. No one told him there was a false alarm. And they were ready for it. They're like, Okay, we missed one security guard you put you know, he pulled the fire alarm. So let's go find him. So they send Carl's brother up to go find him.

Jason Connell:

Or McLean sees the fire trucks like turn their sirens off and turn around and then we feel his despair. It's like he just can't do anything. He's got no phone. No anything. That was a great idea. Foiled

Bryan Beasley:

and then without missing a beat you hear from the elevator?

Jason Connell:

It's a moment later. It's so great. And

Bryan Beasley:

now it's hand to hand combat for old John McClane.

Jason Connell:

Exactly. And he's crafty as we're learning. I love that they also decided to have an unfinished floor or two because it really adds to it if it was just much of cubicles. It just wouldn't be the same Brian. I love it. It's you know, tarps and an unfinished things

Bryan Beasley:

get Dolly's masonary work? Yeah. Um, in fact, the writer D'Souza, the second writer who came on like, he walked through the building, which was for real under construction. And they were just like, oh, we'll write that into the action. Whoa, there's some hammers over there. There's a there's a saw. Let's put that in there. The chains hanging from the ceiling. Let's put that in the screen.

Jason Connell:

And it all works. And so speaking of so yeah, there's a DeWalt saw that he McClain fires up, you know, and then hides, of course that Luers this guy and and then what happens Brian, and then basically

Bryan Beasley:

he's got the funny quip, the terrorist is like, Oh, you're not going to hurt me. You're a policeman. And without missing a beat is like that's what my captain keeps telling me. And then they go at it. Yeah, the guns get thrown to the wayside and it's a death wrestle that basically ends and you know, they're breaking through walls and blah, blah, blah, and then it ends falling down some stairs and McLain holds on to break the guy's neck. Yeah, he

Jason Connell:

breaks his neck and even McLean took a hit nap and fall down a flight of stairs. I'm sorry, it's gonna hurt. And these aren't padded steps and the guy does break his neck Now we cut to a photo of Takagi and Brian with that poor photo, no wonder they couldn't recognize him earlier. That photo on screen. It didn't even look like him. So maybe that's what happened. Hans got all this bad intel. He's like, I don't know what it looks like. I don't know what this is. But on screen as well, you see that GAVI means red Castle, or it also means red tree or red future. As far as Japanese translation, red Castle works way cooler, gray game. And of course, this guy's good. He cracks codes. And Theo is you know, he's in and he's often running past the first lock. So now McLean, due to this death that he caused, he has a walkie talkie, a Zippo lighter, and some pretty small shoes.

Bryan Beasley:

That's right. And a machine gun. But yeah, the shoes that's important, you know, and this is that's an important thing. Because like, without the shoes, like that whole thing like playing field, like anytime he kills him, people be like, Why isn't he just steal someone else's shoes. So I thought that was a great thing. Because in every movie, like, you know, Indiana Jones knocks out a Nazi and then puts on his uniform. You know, they did that too. It's like it's a little tight in where it was last week. So I thought that was really funny. He's like all the terrorists in the world. And this was the one I kill as feet smaller than my sister

Jason Connell:

had to say. Because if you don't say we're all like, Hey, man, what the heck, totally great. And this guy, by the way, it's Carl's brother, as you said, but his name is Tony. Now he gets Tony's California license. And it says his name is Richard G. aaronson, and he lives in Sherman Oaks.

Bryan Beasley:

Is that right? Oh, yeah, I

Jason Connell:

actually look at the address to it's pretty funny. And there's reference later because Maclean's like, they paid high money for these fake IDs. So obviously, a fake name, fake license and all that, but his name is Tony. And Carl later, is really going to want to avenge his brother's death. So now McLean has a plan in motion with an elevator. Brian? Yeah,

Bryan Beasley:

it's a it's the first of many times we're going to be jumping in and out of elevators and elevator shafts. But he Yeah, he puts poor Tony in an office chair or Tony and sends them down to the to the party and little to the terrorists know, John McClane is now he's now detective McLean because he is spying on them. Yes, he is. While he was gaining Intel of the building. Now he's gaining intel on the terrorist group, trying to figure out how many there are. So the elevator door opens. One of the hostages sees the dead body and screams and Hans and the rest of the terrorists come running and they find poor Tony. And this is one of my favorite things he has spray painted. Now I have a machine gun. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Poor Tony's gray matching sweat sweat suit, by the way, full gray top and bottom. sweatsuit and John McClane is on top of the elevator listening to all of them, he can hear them speaking German, he, he starts writing down the other names of some of the other people. And here's Hans literally saying, Well, someone told Carl that his brother's dead.

Jason Connell:

Yeah, now McLean has flipped the script. He is definitely on the hunt, or at least on the Intel hunt. And yeah, but before he comes down before Tony comes down, and his festive, get up, Hans is back with his parish, and he's eating and sharing the hostages all know that their leader has been killed. So it's a different mood. Now, the stakes have been raised. But then here comes elevator doors you've just said and they all kind of get a glimpse at the body as well. But the only person happy there's probably Holly, because she knows that means John is taking care of business. That's right. Someone's kicking ass. And yes, McLean is on top of the elevator and I like the way he's writing on his arm, like how many he seems so he's like, you know, doing chicken scratch or whatever, like 1234 fives, how many people he sees and the names of people. He's heard Carl's name, he's heard Hans name. So he's taking inventory. And it's really cool to see that he's got this in his DNA as a cop. But I also love when he comes across the Playboy centerfolds on the wall just randomly. Pretty funny because he notices it because he's got

Bryan Beasley:

that flirtatious eye. Yeah. Well, he's a man.

Jason Connell:

And a good looking man, as you have pointed out, yeah, it's

Bryan Beasley:

a nice it's a nice touch of set design, because it could be, well, just one empty, unfinished floor after another. So to put those little touches, whether it be like a little Christmas tree, there's, you know, there's some Twinkies that will come into play in a little later. And yes, the centerfold is bit has been hung up by one of the construction workers. And it's also a marker of just lets the audience know exactly where we are. Well,

Jason Connell:

sad because they circle back around later. It's like, oh, that's our crumbs. That's now we know. We've been here and I know my way out. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's a construction worker. This is not one of the employees of Holly's company on their desk. This is definitely like it's gonna be there while they're working. came on said floor. And that's it. And then I'll move to the next floor, or whatever.

Bryan Beasley:

I mean, it's a little bit of a mascot for the working for the construction group. And then it becomes a little bit of a mascot for John McClane as well. And he actually touches it like Hey, ladies, it says yeah, it's like, it's like his lucky charm.

Jason Connell:

So then Hans tells Carl that his brother has been killed. And Carl is not happy about this. He's making it personal now. So everyone's on the straight and narrow, they have an objective but now Carl is like, okay, he's been tested a little bit. This is out of his comfort zone. He wants revenge.

Bryan Beasley:

He wants blood. And we know that he's not gonna think straight now. Exactly. Yeah. Because he's like throwing desks over emotional. And we're like, okay, because Hans is so cool, calm and collected. And so he let somebody gives them a few min. And they go and they try to hunt him, right? Yeah.

Jason Connell:

And now McLean is on the roof. And he calls for help.

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah, so he's got his CB, he called the emergency channel. And he cut to the 911 operators, instantly goes up the ladder of command to the managers, who's basically like, it's like, you can't be on this line. Sir. This is an emergency line and he delivers rather than fine come down here and arrest me. He was like, just send everybody and no one's giving him any the time of day until the terrorists once again arrive in full force Carl and his and his posse lay light up that roof with with gunfire

Jason Connell:

and before they arrive. I do love the line. No fucking shit lady does it sound like I'm ordering a pizza? Like so good, cuz he's really just like, come on. I'm telling you where I'm at. Just come and get me. And they use the real address because a lot of times movies don't but they really do 2121 Avenue of the Stars Los Angeles, California. 90213. That is it. That is actually the fox Plaza. So that is really there folks, if you're ever out in California, check it out. And it's still standing was not blown up by McLean and company. And then when they do arrive, Brian, I gotta say this crew, Carl's little crew this team. They look like a 90s glam rock band.

Bryan Beasley:

Even my wife when she was haunting it. They tore it right they're getting the elementary goes. They're all really good lucky that her does fall into some of the usual trappings. And it is euro trash. Bad guys. Like they all look like Fabian. They've all got long hair and beautiful faces.

Jason Connell:

Yeah, I hear they're gonna start singing some firehouse song or something, you know.

Bryan Beasley:

Don't treat me bad.

Jason Connell:

Anyway, so it's true. They light up the roof. And they're all in pursuit of one crafty John McClane. And while they're lighting him up, though, the cop overhears a bullet a gunshot if you will. And she sends a black and white unit over which then begins a whole other storyline, which is amazing for this movie. If you thought you had enough characters. Nope. We're gonna give you another one. And he's great. Sergeant owl. Pow. And he's at the a&m with a clerk who has a major attitude. Brian, I gotta tell you guys give him a lot of crap.

Bryan Beasley:

He's a pumping gentleman and he seems to be buying one too many snacks for his wife who's pregnant over I asked for his wife. He's bringing but the clerk isn't buying.

Jason Connell:

Sure not having it. And I like when he gets the call. And I was like, Okay, I'll bear it over. And he walks outside the AMPM and I liked the fact that he just walks over and gets a visual appeal V of the plaza from there. It's kind of neat. I don't remember seeing it yet actually until this point in time from that perspective,

Bryan Beasley:

right know from far away like that. Yeah. And it's also great because he kind of looks up on the roof and you can see little little things white, but you think oh, maybe that's something to tell planes that the buildings there but in reality, it's freaking machine guns. And it's a great cut because we jump right back into the action.

Jason Connell:

Yep, exactly. The shootout continues. And McLean even has to get through this massive fan, which we've seen before movies, but this might have been one of the first times we've seen this, you know those huge industrial fans and he sets his gun to kind of squeeze through it just in time because he can't out shoot these guys. He's got one machine gun to their what three of them at this point in time. Yep. And this is when he passes the playboys. Again, little shout out to the playboys. And Brian, I am not big on heights. I'm not gonna lie. I'm not and this stop coming up is absolutely crazy.

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah, so he gets to that industrial fan, like you're saying and then he's looking down the air shaft. So he's trying to escape to the air shafts and basically has to like almost repelled down with the strap of the machine gun to try to get to the next floor and get into their aircraft. And actually, you know, the behind the scenes is that the stunt man was doing it. And he was also leapt from the strap that he's holding on and grab the entrance to the floor down below hems air shaft, and he missed it. And the editor was on set was like That's awesome. Like, just give me a shot from inside. Two floors down of him catching himself and that's what he does. So he actually he actually fell two floors when he was only supposed to fall one for it. It's real. It's all practical. No, this is CGI.

Jason Connell:

It's amazing. It's scary. Yeah, he's hoisted himself down with the strap of machine gun that's not even made to hold you up. It's like, oh my god too many things. It's too scary for me. But it sounds great. And I did love to find that out as well. That was really cool. And now he's in the heating and cooling vent, I guess. Yep. And kind of crawling around and he's now I know what a TV dinner feels like. And yeah, some of the best line is just going on. Hey, come out to the coast we'll get together have a few laughs

Bryan Beasley:

and it's classic. It's you know, it really is like that's the moment I feel when He delivers that come out to the school get together have a few laughs He's He's channeling the Bruce Willis Moon law. Yeah. Which was just one line or after another. And it was so smart of them. For D'souza the writer to lean into that to lean in to how charming Bruce Willis could be. It's not all about it's not these threatening lines. It's these self deprecating. What the fuck am I doing in an air shaft? Motherfuckers like I come out to LA and this I'm being shot up by terrorists. What the fuck is this shit. You know, all I'm trying to do is get the fucking police out here to take.

Jason Connell:

And most of these funny lines with the exception of some of course, because he was hilarious about the pizza delivering some upcoming ones to Hans, but a lot of them are just himself, giving us something it is great. And they did lean into it. They didn't do too much. He's not cocky. He's just like, What the heck am I got myself into? Yeah,

Bryan Beasley:

he's a blue collar everyday man, which is why his character that's why people love this movie. Because I mean, you can kind of I mean, he can't really relate. It's an absurd premise. But

Jason Connell:

he is relatable. Yeah. Reminds me of Sheriff Martin Brody and Joss the last thing he wants to do is go save the day. And beyond that damn boat. So yeah, anyway, so now Carl moves in. And he is getting close, Brian. He's like tapping the vents and getting closer to where John might be hunkered down. And of course, he gets a call, say by the bell. That's right.

Bryan Beasley:

Hans calls him right. Yeah. While McLean is, you know, talking to himself in their chat. And Carl is able to see him turn off his LIDAR so we know exactly what floor he is on and where he's at. So they rushed down there and he's poking the vents. And you see and he gets really close. And then he like puts a few bullets in there. And they do have that great rack focus from like the bullet hole smoke coming through to McLean's face and he's like, Oh, Jesus, that was like a foot away from my face. But you're right Hans calls him is like is locked in. We need you back down here. Like you're gonna have to ignore this guy for a little bit because we've got it we've got work to do, which was a mistake.

Jason Connell:

Yep. And now our pulls up to Nakatomi Plaza, and it's a nice shot. I like this kind of high POV of the black and white car pulling up. And I love it. McLean's looking at this going who's driving his car? Stevie Wonder.

Bryan Beasley:

Do you remember Stevie Wonder jokes? Were a thing. That was a huge thing. Yeah, the whole time. I watch it. My daughter won't even get that. Like, she won't get that joke at all.

Jason Connell:

And now we have our security guard Huey Lewis no less Huey Lewis and he lets him in no side of the news. But definitely you we Lewis here. And he lets a man and there's a football game on it. This guy really sells it to Brian.

Bryan Beasley:

He does. I got 50 bucks on there. Massholes. Now he mentioned

Jason Connell:

Notre Dame versus USC. Right. So I had to look this up. So it's supposed to be Christmas Eve. So I looked up this game. Did Notre Dame play USC on Christmas Eve? No. They played November 26 1988. Notre Dame was actually number one in the country. USC was number two in the country. And the game was at the Coliseum. So they're pretty close. Notre Dame went on to win 27 to 10. They actually were co champions that year. But yeah, the security guard has money on it. And he's like, yeah, he's back into the game, ignoring owl really coolly acting like a security guard. Like, yeah, go ahead and look around, whatever. So Alice is kind of, you know, poking around, but he's he doesn't see anything astray.

Bryan Beasley:

No, yeah. He walks down the hallway towards the elevators. And then what you see in the widescreen version, oh, here you can see there's a machine gunner just around the corner. And if he hadn't, he basically says to himself, he's like, I'll screw this, I'll fuck this. And, yeah, and heads back to his car. But if he'd made it around the bend, he would have been taken out. And what's funny is that I remember watching diehard on regular television on the three, four format and you didn't you couldn't see the gun. So it's kind of a little family. Now all TVs are widescreen. So but yeah, so he heads back out to his car, and John McClane has to do something to get his attention.

Jason Connell:

Yeah, that's true. So John tries to break glass which alerts the bad guys course they're always one step behind him. And then he has to kill one takes him out. And then he kills a second, who's Marco, who had him pandemic like he was underneath He's one of the models I believe, and he was coming for him. And like John's always just one step ahead of danger and kills a second. So as owl is back to his car, he's singing Ryan, do you remember the song he's singing?

Bryan Beasley:

He's singing Christmas song thing? Yeah,

Jason Connell:

let it snow.

Bryan Beasley:

Let us know. Which will we'll hear in the credits. Yeah, exactly.

Jason Connell:

So he's saying,

Bryan Beasley:

I didn't put that together.

Jason Connell:

He's doing that. But I was like, you know, I came by Christmas, I gotta get these Twinkies, home to my pregnant wife. And then what happens?

Bryan Beasley:

So it gets back in his car. It's a great shot. It's from inside of the car looking up through the, through the windshield, and you just see this out of focus body come right, and it just lands right on his car. So basically, he threw Marco, who he just killed in the conference room out the window. And at this point, the terrorists are like the police know, and they open a heavy heavy dose of machine gunfire. And yeah, Sergeant now pathos, that cruiser in reverse. And basically, as he says it himself with a radio, they're turning my car into Swiss cheese. And he's able to kind of take it over a bank, which kind of protects him in the off side of his car with a bit of a head injury.

Jason Connell:

And that was quick thinking on his part, because had he not sped away. They weren't gonna waste him. You're right. Oh, yeah, they

Bryan Beasley:

were trying to kill him. He got very lucky.

Jason Connell:

He's like, holy shit. I know too much. I've got to get the heck out of here. And we find out later that, you know, he's been a desk jockey for a while. So he had some old instincts kick in here and thought, Oh, I got it. I gotta move. And I also have to say that I hadn't really thought about this. That's one amazing throw by McLean of Marco. That is incredible throw. I just have to say. Well done, because he could have like, just completely missed. And now this doesn't see it from

Bryan Beasley:

30 floors. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty impressive through

Jason Connell:

Yeah. So now we have another great character in this movie. Reporter Richard Thornburg played by dornburg, played by William Atherton, and you definitely recognize him as usually kind of a jerk. But real genius, so good in that movie, and Ghostbusters, just to name a couple.

Bryan Beasley:

He was the go to asshole. Oh, in the ad is this

Jason Connell:

and this movie's got a couple of these go to assholes. But this is one of them. I'll say the other one for a few minutes later. And he hears Al's alert. You know, this is before TMZ or whoever was scooping the calls, or that great movie Nightcrawler with Jake Gyllenhaal, if you've seen that. They're just like listening. And then they're on it to go film it and sell the footage. Well, he's one of these guys in the 80s way ahead of his time. Listen into the scanner, isn't it and he heads off because this is news. Now we know Crosstown we have Notre Dame playing USC, which is crazy. But this is bigger news. So here we go. Now Hans is calm. And of course he expects the police to come at some point.

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah, he even says it. It's like, it's part of the plan. The police had to be alerted. I think there's a thing of like, you know, that it was maybe a little earlier than they were expecting or hoping for. But you know, they'll roll with it. Like you said he's completely gone.

Jason Connell:

And John McClane calls. Hans, he actually him and Hans are speaking. So kind of explained this exchange Ryan.

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah. So, actually, I think al Powell kind of gets on the radio and it's like, whoever use this emergency channel, if you can, so McLain starts talking to him. And kind of like, you know, it's like, here's, it's this, it's that and Hans gets on there. This is when the chess match begins. Because it is a cat and mouse between the two of them. Hans is he's like, come on up mean, the doors open. We love we love to have you and he's like, not going to happen. And basically he's antagonizing and McCain is, is, you know, making fun of them. Talking about he knows that they have the artillery. He just picked up the detonators off Marco. He knows how many hostages they have. He's telling them everything. And basically, he's the good cowboy. And ALMS is the bad guy. And they both they both know the roles, and they play them so well. And Hans is you know, he makes fun. He's like you think you're Rambo. You think you're another American cowboy. And this is where we get from McLean delivering the famous one is like I was always partial to Roy Rogers, and give them the old up aka motherfucker. There

Jason Connell:

it is. An incredible line that has withstood the test of time. 100% amazing line. And finally for the first time, Brian, Hans looks a little concerned.

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah, because you know what wasn't part of his plan. Uh, John McClane, John motherfucking. McLean. Yep. And he says it himself like in that exchange. It goes, I'm just the fly in the ointment. The monkey wrench. It's like I'm here to fuck shit up.

Jason Connell:

Dang it. We had no idea he was supposed to be at this party. Literally not party invited by mistake, he says. So now Thornburgh at the network pleads for a truck. Let me Go I gotta get this story. And then Brian. There's a countdown to go live with Harvey Johnson and Gail Wayland. And it just made me think for a second because on countdowns to go live, it's like 432. And the one is silent if I'm not mistaken for news, and they said the one and they use their pinky. So I thought, Hmm, interesting, because that can bleed into the sound but small thing, but I also want to point out that Galloway islands look really familiar to me. And the actress is Mary Ellen Trainor rest in peace. And she was in the Goonies and all the little mountain movies. He had a mom and the Guney. So immediately I recognized her and I looked her up was like, Oh my gosh, I didn't know we lost her. But I want to give her credit but cool, saying and so then Thornburg gets his van, his truck, I should say, and he's off to cover the story. He's off the press. Han shares, McLean has detonators. Now the team knows we've got to get one McLean. These detonators are essential.

Bryan Beasley:

Yes. So now it's not only does Carl have a score to settle, but Hans needs his detonators, and we don't really know why they need the detonators. We don't understand it. We don't know the plan. So yeah, McLean opens up packages all the detonators, but he also has one thing to see for and he's like, oh, and once again, these guys have brought the shit. What's a C four, four?

Jason Connell:

Yeah. And then our talks to McLean and he begins to share. There's 30 Plus hostages, automatic weapons explosives, there's nine terrorists left the European as a source of negative reference, and to call him ROI. So in cigarettes, and ROI, it's a smart move, you know, Roy Rogers not gonna say his real name and out himself and they can research who he's related to, or connected to. So yeah, he's a cop on a party line, because everyone else is listening in. But they've got to kind of talk in code, but he laid out everything that he's saying then as pie like, holy cow, this is a big operation. Yeah,

Bryan Beasley:

it's and he's giving a lot of a lot of information to the cops and very helpful quite honestly. And it also just going to show you get to see how McLean the cop, like how his mind works. And like, you know, like you had mentioned earlier about the fake IDs and that, yeah, these guys are prepared and they're organized and that they're not fucking around. And at this point, he still thinks they're terrorists.

Jason Connell:

Totally. Now Theo has disabled half of the locks and the cops are beginning to assemble. And this includes one Deputy Chief of Police Dwayne T. Robinson,

Bryan Beasley:

Dwayne T. Robinson a great 80s Asshole this guy oh my

Jason Connell:

gosh, one of the greatest played by Paul Gleason rest in peace. incredible actor and you know him well from movies like Trading Places, and The Breakfast Club

Bryan Beasley:

both first ray dazzles.

Jason Connell:

Amazing. It's so good. To have both of these guys in this movie is an incredible feat. And they never even crossed paths.

Bryan Beasley:

They no no, they don't the Dwayne T Robinson and the Thornburgh character. They're both you know, just bureaucrats are getting in the way of anyone trying to get anything done trying to protect these people. Oh, he

Jason Connell:

has some like

Bryan Beasley:

pity is so funny.

Jason Connell:

Yes. And He's chief of police. Well, LA has some issues as we know. So this is not good. So then Holly meets with Hans in her office because he's taken over shop commandeered her office. And of course you know he grants her what yeah, when

Bryan Beasley:

she you know, she basically comes in starts negotiating the day we we got a pregnant lady out here needs a couch, we gotta do better. So take him to the bathroom and he goes, What idiot put you in charge and without missing a beat? She goes you did when you killed my boss. So it again plays into what kind of an independent woman she is. She's not I mean, listen, she sparred with with her husband, John McClane. And that's a strong woman if you're going to stand up to him. So she's used to powerful men, probably under estimating her and not giving her her due. And so she came in guns blazing with a bit of a soft touch. I'll give her that credit.

Jason Connell:

But he acquiesced to her request. And they see a softer side of him for maybe one of the only times in this entire movie. So now there's a live remote with Richard Thornburg, who set it up shop covering the event and Hans and Argyle, Argyle party, and by the way, in the limo by himself with the bear, and they're both watching the minibar. He's opened the minibar. The minibar is open for business, and they're both watching the news and seeing what's being covered. So that's kind of cool in real time, we're seeing what's happening here.

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah, and our girl jumps into the front of the cab and basically turns on the CB and it can hear the the chatter of the LAPD as they you know, former perimeter and he's like, What the fuck? What if

Jason Connell:

I done to myself? What kind of job is this? So our argues with Robinson, this guy with his crazy tactics. And Brian, what's he say?

Bryan Beasley:

Well, he's basically going off like, you know, what are we supposed to do about you know, the Roy, the guy who's gave us all the information he's like, Well who is this guy? Maybe he's one of the terrorists jerking your chain. And there's the gray line too. I think he's a cop. He was able to spot a fake ID and yeah, the Robins is like he could be a bartender for all we know.

Jason Connell:

He also says, Yeah, but what about the body that jumped on my car is like, Well, who knows, probably some stockbroker got depressed.

Bryan Beasley:

Completely dismissing it. Again, it's kind of absurd, but it's also like within the moment, it's really well done. And because casting is so good, and Gleason can deliver those lines. It was a total straight face and it works. And what's so great is that you know, when you got Al Powell kind of like, as the straight man between the you know, the two of them Albert Costello, it totally works for the whole movie.

Jason Connell:

Oh, my God, I keep thinking it's gonna say I got you bender. Two weeks. I got you. I just keep waiting for something to come out like that. You know, you mess with the bowl. You get the whole it just so good. He's so good. You're like you said Cassius key. And for them to get these guys the right guys, this movie went to another level completely. So now the cops had inside, you know, he's sending this team and unbeknownst to them, what's inside for them? Because he's not trusting the insight from Roy, which we'll call him Roy in his eyes right now, because he thinks he could be in on it. So they want to go in guns ablaze and not really even understanding what is waiting for them.

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah, he's they send in the SWAT team, basically. Yeah. And, again, going back to the funny writing just wonderful little moments. And, you know, kudos again, to the director McTiernan for letting this happen because none of it is macho, it is self deprecating humor. But when that team approaches the front door, the lead guy, like they run through some plants, and it gets stuck with these guys have tactical gear, that's when you know that they're completely out man, wonderful little nod that these guys are about to get their asses kicked. And that's, that's what happens.

Jason Connell:

That was really funny. And then Argyl attempts to leave to no avail. And Brian at this point in time right now, not in the future, but right now, I didn't really understand Argylls role. Was he just the innocence of him or the Umer? Now? I know it unfolds more later. But at this point in time, I was a little confused.

Bryan Beasley:

I mean, he's definitely put on the back seat, right? Like literally, Yeah, seriously. I mean, we have to check in with him just so that we know he's still a player on the on the game board, but he has no use until the very, very end of the movie. And yeah, he drives around the parking garage. All the gates have been locked down. He's stuck in the building as as John McClane, he has no role until the very end, honestly, because

Jason Connell:

I hadn't seen him so long. I thought that he called him more often, but no, there's a real big gap with him. They do do

Bryan Beasley:

a good job of like anytime. John McClane delivers like a verbal punch to Hans. Sometimes they'll cut to Argyle laughing because he's listening to everything.

Jason Connell:

Absolutely. You're right, because he's listening on the CB. Now,

Bryan Beasley:

it's kind of nice, you know, as a director, you know, like, Oh, hey, let's just without he doesn't have to deliver any dialogue. He's just in there laughing like, oh, we just, you know, face to Hans. And you just kind of remember that he's down there.

Jason Connell:

So very true. Good point. So now the bad guys prepare for this SWAT team coming in and Yuli played by owl Liam. You've got to recognize this guy. He's in billeted Excellent Adventure. He plays gang is Khan. He's in Lethal Weapon. Yep, another great action movie. And then he's in Big Trouble in Little China. Another Fave of mine, so this guy pops up and some classic movies. And I liked that he even describes a crunch bar. You know, just a little just a little moment. It got some time to kill. I'm set up.

Bryan Beasley:

It's in juxtaposition to the SWAT team getting stuck with a Thor. Yeah. And, and him so as terrorists. They're so relaxed. He's like, Oh, hey, look, there's there's a there's a candy. There's a candy drawer here. I'm just going to take this and then cut to Huey Lewis, who's on the other side. And he's like, taking wax out of his ears like they're completely calm. The police serve no threat to them. These are the LA's finest that are coming up to try to take them out. Yeah,

Jason Connell:

they're ready for them. And so what happens?

Bryan Beasley:

So basically, yeah, Hans tells the Oh, hey, leave the safe and get on the comms. And because they've got cameras all over the building. And so he starts with his Twas the Night Before Christmas. And you know, two by two formation. They're coming into the front and Hans gives the orders like just wound them. And so they Huey Lewis and his buddies started shooting through the glass and they're taken out the SWAT team pretty pretty quickly. I mean, it's, it takes them less than 15 seconds before they're all rolling around in shattered glass with a bunch of kneecaps that are missing. And so that sends the LAPD to send in the car.

Jason Connell:

Well, they knocked the lights out to which then everybody wanted to retrieve like they had these huge spotlights you'd see it like at a movie premiere and they've just lit up the building but they immediately from a floor above or couple floors above just knock those out Karlan company and then they wanted to retreat because they have no lights no visual and yeah they just got wounded again didn't need it this wound them I don't know why Hans went that route I'm glad that he did but he has a little bit of a heart I'm not sure where that comes from here in there. intermittently sprinkled in but yes they call for the car this ridiculous RV not ridiculous but ridiculously tough looking RV slash tickets a Hummer right.

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah, it's like an army vehicle. Yeah. Which you wouldn't see with the police but they've got it at that point. Now they

Jason Connell:

send it in and it just takes forever to get it must have been like blocks away like send it in and we're all just kind of waiting for said car. And it finally gets there and comes over but it is no match for one

Bryan Beasley:

rocket launcher. Yeah, fee over the comms is like, Oh, the police have themselves in our V. And yeah, to the terrorists. There. They've got the nail the rocket launcher. They like drill it to the floor. It's pretty impressive. So they immediately hit it once and the thing is, like, engulfed in flames like just isn't completely destroyed, but it is pretty bad.

Jason Connell:

So that Han says hit it again.

Bryan Beasley:

He did again. And yeah, McLean jumps on like CBS like you've made your point. Let him pull back. It's Han sticking into McLean. At that point. He's like, I can do whatever I want. You have no control over the situation. And so they do they hit it again. And then McLean's got to do something

Jason Connell:

back to my point. Just the same ago, just wheeling them, but hit those guys twice with a rocket launcher. Okay, I want those guys dead.

Bryan Beasley:

It's like we were just saying it's like, once McLain kind of like voiced his displeasure. Yeah. Then Hans like numb. All right, then we'll just murder everybody like then what is going to burn them to a Chris?

Jason Connell:

So now McLean has a new plan. And it involves a chair and elevator shaft and explosives. So basically,

Bryan Beasley:

he's got that C four in his pocket. He's like, Well, when's a better time to use it than now, though some detonators in it strapped into a chair. And when he's doing it, he's kind of like, oh, fuck it, he doesn't quite understand what he's doing. Like he he has a bit of an idea that that this most likely will blow up but he doesn't really you know, he's out of his depth when it comes to his explosive knowledge. He throws a computer monitor on top of it. So it's all kind of one piece. grabs an axe opens up the the outer doors of the elevator, and he throws the thing down the shaft. And kaboom.

Jason Connell:

Geronimo, motherfucker,

Bryan Beasley:

drama fire.

Jason Connell:

So good. And there is a huge explosion. It even knocks him back again, as you just said he doesn't work with explosives. This is his first take. And now it's coming back up the shaft and yeah, this is gonna happen. And he lives but it really just knocks out like almost like a whole floor of windows inside the plaza. Yeah.

Bryan Beasley:

Everyone outside as Dwayne Robbins says is covered in glass.

Jason Connell:

Yeah, covered in glass and Thornburg is super pleased. He's like, did you get that? Yeah, eat your heart out Channel Five.

Bryan Beasley:

Perfect. And you know, it's all about the story for him. He could care less how many people die. It's all about the story. We lost

Jason Connell:

our camera guy. Did we get it? Okay, good. We're out. Good. So now McLean an hour talk as Robinson interrupts because he's pissed. He thinks that McLean is no good son of a guy who's blowing up buildings. And so they have this heated exchange.

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah. And it's basically you know, it's, it's like, we don't need your help, you know, blah, blah, blah. But at this point, the bodies are really starting to add up. Like, I mean, McLean is winning this war like he is, because he was that explosion, he kills two more, he kills the two guys that remain in the rocket, and basically saving anyone who's so alive in that car. He's basically saved their lives. And as he says himself, he's feeling a little unappreciated.

Jason Connell:

And I like he says, well, Robinson makes it sound like he's in charge. And then of course, McLaren says, from that period doesn't look like you're in charge of jack shit. And he is so right that he's not doing anything. And owl loves him. You can tell they're just forming this great bond. For the love of being a cop and having the instincts and for the hatred of this jerk off

Bryan Beasley:

Robinson 100%. Who can't get anything right. In those moments. It becomes a cop buddy picture. And they've never met, no, never met. And at this point, he doesn't even know his real name

Jason Connell:

yet, right? Not yet. Absolutely. So now Ellis the douchebag makes his move, and claims he can give Hans McLean

Bryan Beasley:

That's right. He walks in. He delivers a fantastic speech that has lines such as hey, you know, I watched 60 minutes. You use a gun. I use a fountain pen. Even called them Hans, boobie. I can give them to you and you're kind of like that. As a viewer, you're like, Why him and McLean have met one time? You don't really understand what his plan is. He's been taking coke the entire time. He's been in the hostage lobby. So he's obviously out of his mind. But he did listen to his point. This is what he does. He puts together million dollar deals, and he feels that John McClane is going to get him killed. So if he can, you know, neutralize him, which in his mind probably just means bring him down with the rough sausages. They can, you know, get this thing over with.

Jason Connell:

Yep. So while that's happening, we cut to McLean who's spitting out a Twinkie. And of course, Al knows the recipe because yellow dad, number five, he gets some a lot for his pregnant wife and himself. There's a little heartfelt exchange here. Kid chat, you know, do you have kids? I have to I have my first on the way. Well, I liked it a movie like this gives us these little moments to breathe and catch our breath. Yes. Between the machine guns get to know these buddies. It's like a little Lethal Weapon here.

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah. So they basically have a heart to heart. And, you know, we get to learn more about each character, you know, through it, even though, you know, he's still calling him Roy, at that point, like that's about to change. all about to change. Thanks, Alice.

Jason Connell:

So Hans jumps on the old party line here. And he says, What are

Bryan Beasley:

you basically call him John McClane, and he's like, of the NYPD. And so we come to find out that Ellis has told Hans that John McCain was invited to the party because he's his friend. So Holly Janiero is still safe at this point. And he needs to do what's right and tell Hans where the detonators are, and come on down and give himself up so that the police can swap the money whatever money that they want, that they're holding them ransom for, and get this gift this evening over with because Ellis has, you know, he's got plans. He's got hot plans on this Christmas Eve,

Jason Connell:

I gotta do blow with some of the ladies I gotta get.

Bryan Beasley:

I got no time for this. But I

Jason Connell:

have to say, Brian, that Ellis overplayed his hand.

Bryan Beasley:

100% didn't really realize just how ruthless Hans was gonna be

Jason Connell:

now. And so I hate to say it but what happens?

Bryan Beasley:

Ellis has to make his exit of course, John McClane doesn't give himself up and pleads with Alice to tell him that they're not friends. He's not the reason why he was invited to the party. And of course, that doesn't happen and Hans pulls out the gun all this is being played over the radio, the CBS and LLS has basically his last little thing is like, it's like Hans What am I a method actor? This is Radio not television. Like, you know what, put away the gun. And he takes a sip of his coke and we hear a gunshot and poor Elsa is no more he exit stage right? Yep.

Jason Connell:

And to be clear, I seven was Coca Cola. They wouldn't got him a Coca Cola can of Coke and yeah, and that was it for Ellis. And I gotta say, though, I had a moment of like, yeah, a guy this desperate. And this douchey. I think he would give up Holly.

Bryan Beasley:

That's a good point. I you know, I guess you're totally right. It is an interesting move. And once again, Ellis has to be the center of the narrative like the center of the world. So of course, he comes in as like, he's my friend. I'm, you know, I'm the reason he's here. I can help you out. You know, I'm saying, yeah, it's, it's his story, not Holly's in that moment.

Jason Connell:

That's true. And now you can see that Hans is a little desperate, a little bit, he went from concerned a little desperate, because he's got a wild man who's very capable, on the loose was something that he needs.

Bryan Beasley:

Well, I mean, he's dealing with an element that was not in the meticulous planning. There was no mention of a new york city cop coming in and wiping out seven of his terrorists at this point. And the other aspect is, Thornburg finds out that there's a new york city cop and the name of the cop, and he sends his his lackey to go find out more information about who this guy is.

Jason Connell:

Yeah. And now Robinson argues with Al this is a constant situation with those two, and Han calls them and gives his demands, which are just crazy demands

Bryan Beasley:

Asian on

Jason Connell:

and they're scrambling like, okay, so he wants all these prisoners freed. But this is not their agenda. They're just putting them on a wild goose chase. And again,

Bryan Beasley:

it's playing into the plan that he wants the world to think that they are terrorists. And there's a wonderful moment where Carl's like lounging in the chair next to Hans as he's delivering these demands, and he goes, my brother's Asian Dawn must be released. And he's like a, like Mao's Asian Dawn and Hans cuts the Locky off. He's like I read about them in Time Magazine. They're just having a laugh. They sound important,

Jason Connell:

so funny, but McLean is not buying the story at all. He knows that this is not real. And meanwhile, Theo is one lock away. So a lot of things at play. Bam, bam, bam. Now we're back to the new station with Harvey and Gail They're meeting with an author who wrote this book entitled

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah, it's absurd. It's hostage terrorist, terrorist hostage

Jason Connell:

study and duality. So this author's talked about the Stockholm syndrome. And I love the fact that Harvey chimes in like, yeah, that's in Sweden. And they're like, Finland. It's like, oh, I can't even get that, right. It's just a funny little bit.

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah. I mean, he's only he's only in the movie twice. But both times he looks like a total bone. And it's great horror very,

Jason Connell:

we can tell him and Thornburg aren't the closest of friends. And now the FBI arrives. And this is also great, Brian, I mean, Johnson and Johnson.

Bryan Beasley:

Yes. No relation. Agent Johnson. Agent Johnson. Yeah, they walk

Jason Connell:

up. And the first Johnson is played by Grand l Bush. And he was in movies like License to Kill colors. Lethal Weapon one and two. And the other Johnson played by Robert Davi. Also in Licensed to Kill raw deal, and the

Bryan Beasley:

Goonies Yes, he plays it for tele brother

Jason Connell:

definitely does. And I've actually run into him in real life at the Newport Beach Film Festival. And yeah, great, great actor. I mean, they're awesome. They are great.

Bryan Beasley:

And at this point, the movie is building and building and building and FBI shows up and they're just swinging their decks like they're just like, Excuse me, LAPD. This is how these things are run. And we are in charge. Now. There's the great thing is that when when Dwayne Robinson hears that the FBI is there, Powell goes, Do you want a breath, man? Because he's kind of like straightening up?

Jason Connell:

Yeah. Oh, the FBI is here. Oh, yeah. Hi, I'm in charge. Yeah, we got it from here. It's always the case, whose territory who's covering this, but FBI shows up, and they're taken over. And they do take over and we have a lot more coming with them. Now, Hans checks on the explosives. And Brian, this is one of the most memorable scenes in the entire movie.

Bryan Beasley:

Again, they were writing the movie as they were filming it. And material was like, there has to be a scene where these two actually meet face to face before the climactic scene like we need them to have a scene together. And sure enough, I guess the story goes that D'Souza, the writer was really having trouble, like, how do I do this? Like he would know, you know, he would know that it's the bad guys bubble bomb. And basically, at the craft service table, Alan Rickman was doing an American accent. And as soon as like, That's it, Maclean will come upon you checking the explosives on the on the roof. And you'll immediately slip into your American accent and pretend that you're one of the hostages that snuck out. And, you know, the scene basically plays out with MacLean, and Hans pretending to be a worker named Bill clay. Do you think that MacLean is believing him? Do we not think that he's believing? And what were your thoughts on that? So

Jason Connell:

first of all, let's go back to Bill clay. I think he got that name off the wall there on the other people like very usual suspects moment.

Bryan Beasley:

There's like, an index of people's names on that floor. But it's Bruce Willis. You see his character look at it. And he sees William clay. And Hans who's next to it says my name is Bill clay, which basically gives Don McLean the idea of like, Oh, this guy's either for real or he's really smart, because like, he glanced at it and knew, you know, he picked the name up off the thing knowing that McLean would be asking what his name was, he didn't even

Jason Connell:

really need to do that, though. He could have made anything up. He's just the guy at the party. He didn't have to be on the wall. But hey, whatever. That's what he went for. Right? Right. Because I said, my name is Larry David. It wouldn't matter, whatever. But anyway, when I first saw this in the theater, I just thought, What a brilliant play. Because we know he's busted. We know he's dead to rights. And then he shifts and acts scared, and then I'm just nervous for my hero, my McClane, like, Oh my God, he's been tricked, he's been duped. And that was a great moment for him to switch. I do believe that McLean bought it to a point. But what happens next? I have questions about

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah, your hands on the gun, and there's no bullets in it. And, you know, it was a test it was definitely a test now, doing research for this pod. I have come to find out that there was some stuff that was shot when the when the terrorists first get out of the truck. They all kind of put their arms and together in a shot and they synchronize their watches like a Parker Lewis can't lose kind of moment. Yes, exactly. And they all had a tag watches tag, Hauser watches. And so apparently, McLean gives him a cigarette. And at that moment, there was supposed to be an insert shot, where he sees the watch. And he would have noticed the watches when he was above them in the elevator. And so there's this whole thing of like time that was completely cut out. And McTiernan has gone back and talked about this scene and he's like, he wanted to kind of leave it open like does McLean always know Natanz? Does he not know until he pulls the trigger on the gun that at times, and you're kind of you're kind of left up to your own devices. There's also a thing, which I found was interesting. I didn't notice until this viewing that when McLain gives the cigarettes to Hans, he takes the cigarette out and then puts the cigarette pack in his pocket. Because they're their cigarettes. It's the bad guy cigarettes that he'd taken from, from Tony. So there's a little bit of a thing of like, well, did he notice that he kept his own cigarettes kind of thing? I don't know, you're kind of reaching at certain points. But at the end of the day, he gives them a gun with no bullets in it. And when he when it goes, click, that is the standard definition that before it goes,

Jason Connell:

click even when he holds it up. It's like, okay, this guy's he's a bad guy. But I would also ask this, he may immediately know he's not a hostage, but he's one of the bad guys. But how does he know? It's Hans? He doesn't

Bryan Beasley:

know at times. I mean, I think going back to what you were saying about the the marquee with the names on it, and that he did use a name that was on there, Hans is always thinking a few steps ahead, right. So he's thrown in this weird situation where reclaims got a gun to his head, he instantly goes into the American accent. So they walk over to this thing, he sees the index, he picks a name off of there. And he's like, that's what I'm going to be like, he's already two steps ahead before we even have a clean acids name. And I just think that there's an aspect of that of like, oh, okay, this guy is really smart, that McLean's like, I'm dealing I'm not dealing with one of the henchmen like this, there's maybe hundreds and I'm dealing Okay,

Jason Connell:

that's a good point. And I agree with that. And I probably much like that scene earlier with the female on the building across the way that probably was more than as you just said, and yeah, could have gotten a different path completed with the watches. I'm glad it went this way. It makes you think, but it was a great moment, the old trick gun and see how the guy reacts? Because if he's in on it, and if he's a good guy as a hostage, I can trust them. And but you wouldn't necessarily have to give a hostage gun right away, either. You know, so yeah,

Bryan Beasley:

yeah. There's a lot of talk of like, would you give some guy who doesn't work a firearm, and he's like, she's shooting you by mistake?

Jason Connell:

No, I'd have him tell me how he got there. You know, there are more people hiding. There's a lot of questions, you can start asking him, but I liked the way it played out. And it's a great moment, because I'm glad they had it in this movie, because they don't really ever get to interact. And this was it. And it was well worth it.

Bryan Beasley:

Right face to face. Yeah. And then right off the bat again, here

Jason Connell:

comes our boys call a company arrive, and it's another shoot out. And this one, I gotta tell you, this reminds me of predator, when they're all just shooting at trees when they just think the predators coming. They are just shooting up everything in the sequence. And then horror of course, has one more of his hockey puck explosives.

Bryan Beasley:

Now, before we get to that, though, we've been building up to the whole movie, why is he running around with no shoes. And when Hans and McLean have their little get together, he notices that he doesn't have shoes because McLean delivers. Well, it's better than being caught with their pants down. And he tells Carl, to shoot of the glass. Now he said, now there's a lot of talk about this, because he says it in German, okay, which would be Carl's native tongue, right? And Carl doesn't quite understand what he's saying. So then he repeats it in English, shoot the glass, basically being like, he doesn't have any shoes on Well, what he will be able to get out of here will be trapped because the glass is awful for and a lot of people even me was like, why would he not understand it when he was when he said it in German. So I found one I'm gonna go with this. I found one theory online, that in the translation when it went from what wound workman says in German, he says shoot the windows. And that's not what he meant. He doesn't mean shoot the windows because he means in shoot the interior panes of glass. And that gets the word that he used in German windows do mean these exterior windows. So that's what I'm going with. Now. That's something I've learned from doing this podcast after watching the movie for 30 years.

Jason Connell:

Well, that works perfect, Brian, that makes sense. Enough people I know who speak different languages. Sometimes they're trying to explain it to someone else. And there's not that word or that connecting word. And they will do it in English just to do that. So I buy that. Yeah, two Germans. And they're trying to make sure they're on the same page. And yeah, he looks at him like, why would I shoot those windows? What's going to be the impact of that? So I like that. I'll go with that. And then of course, we see one more of Carl's famous hockey puck explosives. Yep. I've got to get some of these dude.

Bryan Beasley:

They do look like they'd be fun to party.

Jason Connell:

Yeah. And I didn't kill anybody. Nobody died. Just have some smoke come out. But now Hans grabs the detonators, because, of course McLean had to take cover and he's stepped out enough glass where we'll get to that in a minute. And Carl has an insane reaction because they had to give up the chase. And what is Carl doing now?

Bryan Beasley:

He's pissed. Yeah, cuz Hans is like, we're back baby. We got the detonators we can finish our plan, but this makes

Jason Connell:

Holly happy because they make it down to their floor again, because she can tell by Carl's reaction that one and John McLean is still alive, bloody, but alive and well.

Bryan Beasley:

Yes, indeed, she believes that great lines like only John can piss someone off like that. And she would know Yeah, she's probably destroyed a few many bars around time.

Jason Connell:

So now Brian, I have to say when we see this glass and his feet, it just makes me squeamish man more than anything in this whole movie. That's like, oh,

Bryan Beasley:

it really is, you know, he doesn't have shoes on for the whole movie. And you come to find out that that's kind of his kryptonite, right? A broken glass is like his kryptonite. He's kind of had a bit of the upper hand because he's been in hiding, but now everything is is back on schedule for the terrorists. Like he's really down the dumps. This is the lowest moment that we see John McClane and he's literally with his fingers picking glass out of his feet. And it is bad. It is not good.

Jason Connell:

Yeah, it's not like just it'll be okay. In a second. He still can't take a break. He has to put pressure back on these feet. And he has no shoes to take comfort in. And he's wrapping them up. There's a ton of blood here. And I think that's pretty accurate. I mean, you cut your feet, it's gonna bleed. He's got to have it clot and not good. He's hobbled for the rest of the movie. No doubt. Yeah, he

Bryan Beasley:

100% is Yeah.

Jason Connell:

So now we have McLean and Al chatting. And I gotta say they're chatting a lot. These guys are becoming fast friends. And our share is that the FBI is now in control, which I was thinking Hans also would have heard, however, just moments later, he's figured that out because him and Theo are looking at the monitors. Hans already knows this is gonna happen. FBI will come He even said it earlier. I'm just waiting for the FBI to show up. They come take over from said cops. And he's exactly right. And it's exactly what he wanted, because

Bryan Beasley:

they're going to shut down the power grid. 10 blocks, they're shutting it down. And doing too. I was like, This is crazy. It's Christmas Eve, you can't shut down the power of 10 blocks. And Agent Johnson No, the other Agent Johnson. Like, it's like, lose the grid or you lose your job. So

Jason Connell:

the FBI has Walt, the city worker played by Rick DuCommun. And rest in peace. Oh, man, really? Ah, and this great actor who I recognized right away. Definitely this viewing probably not as a youngster. But he was in Groundhog Day and the burbs and many other movies and he cuts the power. But he's really funny. In his few scenes. You even mentioned it very early on in his podcast. He's great at it. You know,

Bryan Beasley:

he's great. He's a comedic actor. So he literally only has one shot and a few lines, but they're hilarious and it's the he gets on the walkie after Agent Johnson tells him You know, lose the grid or lose your job. And he calls a cost to the main thing is like, Hey, this is a wall down here at Nakatomi Plaza. Can you shut down grid to 12? And he's like, he's like, shut it down. Shut it down now, which honestly, is might be my favorite line in the whole movie. It's something that me and my college roommates would like what was going wrong? Shut it down. Shut it down.

Jason Connell:

That line must have been an dorm heart.

Bryan Beasley:

Hey, you know what? Dorm hard was a silent film. So unfortunately, there

Jason Connell:

was a text. Shut up.

Bryan Beasley:

It was 16 millimeter. We didn't have any it was before we'd learned how to use sound yet. So that was part of it was telling story through visuals so but shut it down. Shut it down. Now 100% had been in the movie if we were allowed to use dialogue.

Jason Connell:

Yeah, he does the whole line, like halfway up the manhole and I don't even see his body.

Bryan Beasley:

Oh, yeah. You don't see his whole body at all? No. And again to John maternes. Credit, what a great like, everything is really, you can just tell that even the non action stuff is really well choreographed. Like, you got the FBI agent standing outside the manhole they're arguing with, with Robinson they're arguing with the main you know, the waltz boss. He's bending down and screaming at him in the manhole and it's really well done and even right before that, you know, once they cut the power, you see the two Johnsons kind of running down that that little hill, they're like they're shutting them. Yeah. Oh, yeah. High five, something that could have been so mundane and boring, but it's it's so well choreographed. It is

Jason Connell:

definitely. Well, with that power shutdown opens one

Bryan Beasley:

volt. That's right. And, you know, can we talk? Can we talk? We haven't talked about the score. Can we talk about how they go to Beethoven's Ode to Joy, the ninth symphony, it plays throughout the whole the whole movie, but when that door opens and the light hits you, it's so

Jason Connell:

good, you're right. Good point. I'm glad you made it because it is great. And yeah, there it is. Their plan has just worked. I mean, they've got some different nuances and they got this wild man on the loose is cowboy and they've lost some people which they did not anticipate for sure. That was a new one for them. But the vault is open. This is the heist and Theo goes to work. He's in there. He's Mr. Methodical grab and stuff just like they knew it would be. And the FBI meets their demands these fake demands. I mean, maybe they're BS in at this point in time, but they're sharing this with Hans. And then Agent Johnson says, By the time he figures out what hit him, he'll be in a body bag. Love the Karate Kid reference body bag.

Bryan Beasley:

So yeah, Hans is like, deliver the helicopters. And he's like, we're sending gunships. So that's right. Yep.

Jason Connell:

So McLean shares and kind of breaks down to owl. And it's a really touching scene.

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah. Because he talks about like, he's like, Listen, I'm not making it out of here. Eventually, you're going to find my wife. Don't ask me how you'll figure it out. You'll it'll make sense once this is all over. And he basically apologizes he's like, all this shit most likely wouldn't have been happening. If I just would have been like, upfront with my wife, you know, I'm saying like things would my most likely would have worked out differently. Which kind of

Jason Connell:

reminds me of the documentary when we learned that that's what inspired the screenplay adaptation of the book was a fight with a wife.

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah, the first writer had had a fight with his wife, and he was trying to unlock How do I make this novel work on screen make you care about it? He was like, Oh, if it's all about just a marital argument that you know, these people get over their egos and just talk to each other like human beings. I probably wouldn't be in the mess that they're in. And here we are.

Jason Connell:

But it's great to see Bruce Willis in this. He's really tearing up genuine tears and just really well played. But then, like McLean does, he gets an idea. He gets inspiration. And although he's injured, he heads to the roof. He spots explosives. And once again, he fights home.

Bryan Beasley:

Before he fights him. He basically is like, what was Hans doing up on the roof? Like, why was he up there? In the first place? Because you know, at the time, he says he's a hostage. He was trying to flag the police down. So he goes up there and you thinking that he'd already used all the sea for when he blew up the two guys that were using the rocket launcher. Little did he know that the entire roof was wired to blow and that there was a shit ton to see for up there. And right as he's about to tell his buddy, Sergeant al Powell, hey, it's a double cross. It's a double cross. Carl was waiting. And now he gets his blood feud. And they go out and they punch the crap out, man, right? That's what he says. Like, we're both professionals. And he's like, let's put our guns down and just kill each other with our fists.

Jason Connell:

It kind of reminds me of lethal weapon. Mel Gibson fight Gary Busey. They just threw down and went old school in the yard. That great scene with fisticuffs, so good, but this is a great fight. And Carl is a bad ass. He's huge. Yeah, he's big boy. They have this fight and it goes on. And while that's happening, Richard Thornburg interviews the McLean kids. Oh my gosh, Brian, and what transpires

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah, basically threatens the Navy to get in, but he's gonna sit ins if he doesn't open the door. And basically, he's telling the Lucy McLean, the little eight year old or four year old girl she is that this might be the last chance that she gets to say goodbye to her, her parents and she's basically like, come home. And of course, we cut back to Holly Janeiro's office, and Hans is watching this. And he finally makes the connection and he lifts up the picture that Holly had slammed down and there's the family portrait of John McClane and Holly Janeiro and he puts it all together that oh my god, that's how he got to this party. He's married to her and you

Jason Connell:

now I put it together because you've seen him and he had not seen him. Where was this story gonna go? It was like it was a great device to have them meet. So yeah, even more important that they did to take this route but yeah, there it is. foiled by Thornburg.

Bryan Beasley:

Gosh, exactly. 100% putting his wife in the crosshairs

Jason Connell:

so now the FBI are in choppers and their plan is to take them out and maybe they'll lose 20 to 25% of the hostages

Bryan Beasley:

and you live with that

Jason Connell:

and then usually moves all the hostages to the roof so a lot at play here they're moving upstairs to kill them. These poor hostages I gotta say this is one Christmas party regret attending to say the least. But now Carl Maclean continue to fight and this is like the brawl of the century.

Bryan Beasley:

They are going at it Yep, there's hair pulling. There's the man frankly I've been cleaning gets shot in the shoulder at one point are they're going after it over and over again. And finally McLean is able to get the upper hand in the wraps a chain around old Carl's neck and throws them off the top of the staircase and we think the Carl has been done in as he's hanging there.

Jason Connell:

I thought he was going to pick up the gun and fire at him. I really did. He had the gun in his hand McLain could have easily just finished it off. But no so he leaves him there hanging doesn't look very good for Carl

Bryan Beasley:

doesn't look good for Carla. So

Jason Connell:

we move on and This next same hilarious but they're in the chopper, the FBI agents, and Johnson says one of the Johnsons he's like Goonies Johnson, Goonies Johnson. He's like, Yeah, it's just like fucking Saigon. Hey, slick and then the other Johnson. Maybe one of the funniest lines in the hall. effin movie. He says, I was in junior high dickhead.

Bryan Beasley:

And it's so great because he's in on the joke. He's like making fun of you know, the old man because you know that as when they were partying up, that's all he does is hear this macho asshole talk. Talk about the glory days. He was like, oh, man, dude, I can't relate to you old man. Yeah, I'm 15

Jason Connell:

years younger, but they're both smiling ear to ear because they're just cruising through Los Angeles. And these choppers These shots are amazing, Brian. Yeah, they're well done cruising right through on the street Avenue of the Stars. Fact, as you saw in the documentary, neighbors hated this production.

Bryan Beasley:

Yes. We're not a fan.

Jason Connell:

No wonder they make it Die Hard, or whatever it's called because they have fake names on there doing films. But yeah, they hated it. It was loud. That area in Los Angeles is very nice and a fluent. And yeah, they were not having it. But these are real choppers real effects, none of the CG business. Yeah, these guys are loving their job the FBI agents. So now McLean kills Uli and the hostages, explained him a claim no, Holly's in the vault. She's not up here with everybody else. He's like, Oh my god. Okay. So he's gonna go get her. And then what happens?

Bryan Beasley:

Well, basically, he knows the plan. Like even though the audience isn't quite totally on board of what's happening. He knows the top of the building has been wired to blow and he's got to get all of these people off the roof. And they see the helicopters. They don't know that those helicopters aren't there to pick them up. They don't know that they're warships, and no one there that party besides the one secretary even knows who he is. So he has to start shooting in the air to kind of get them to run away from him to run back down the stairs. Of course, the FBI now 100% thinks he is a terrorist and tries to take him out.

Jason Connell:

Absolutely. And they do. They roll up on him. He's shooting in the air to scare the hostages away, and then they're shooting at him. So of course he runs and jumps McLean style, and gets out of the way. But this leads to maybe the greatest stunt in the movie, Brian?

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah, so basically, after the first FBI sharpshooter misses Goonies agent, Johnson's like, a son of a bitch or whatever he says, McLean's got nowhere to go, he's gotten a he's got to get off this roof because it's gonna blow. And he grabs the fire hose that he finds up there, puts it around him and it's gonna just basically repel off the side of the fucking building. Again, these little lines that he's only saying to himself, as it gets up on the edge of the of the buildings. Like, if I get out of this, I'll never go up in a high building. And of course, you know, Agent Johnson is like aiming him he's got a gun, McLean in the crosshairs. And he basically jumps now before that, and he this happens, we go back down to the vault, and Hans explains why he's trying to blow the roof. And the whole idea is that that's their getaway is that the we're going to blow up the roof that everyone will think that the terrorists died up on the roof, and it will take them months to figure out that in actuality, they had escaped in an ambulance out the back door basically. And Holly's like you guys are simply bank robbers, and he's like, I'm an exceptional thief. And since I'm moving up to kidnapping, you should be more polite.

Jason Connell:

Exactly. That's exactly right. And and then this leads to the iconic scene in which Maclean reluctantly jumps, but he's got no choice. It's gonna blow and he's about to get shot and killed. So he jumps. And this is that great thing in a movie they even talked about on the dock as well. But we already knew this by seeing this movie, a scene where it's like good and then bad, and then good and bad. And take us to the beats Brian.

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah, so it's like, you know, bad enough as a jump off the goddamn side of the building. So he jumps off the building, the roof explodes, he's kind of hanging on. When the roof explodes, it takes out the helicopter, it takes out the What's holding the fire hose to the wall, it comes shooting down so he falls down the building a slightly but it gets caught on the lip of the roof. So he's barely holding on, can't break the glass with his foot. So he swings out, uses his gun shoots the glass. So things are looking good. He's crushing through the glass, he's inside. And then at that very moment, the second explosion of the helicopter goes and then the fire hose eventually like falls down. And the thing that's holding the fire hose it falls and then all of a sudden he's being pulled by the fire hose out the window. He's on 30 floors up and he's desperately trying to get the the hose off of him. And he does just in time before you he was gonna fall out the window. So yeah, it's like every second is like he comes up with a plan and then he's like, Nope, you're not out of this yet. Nope, not this yet. But it's great. It was a Finally he's out of there trying to make his way to the mall.

Jason Connell:

I remember that scene in the theater. The first time I watched this movie and I was on the edge of my seat. I hadn't seen a movie that had tested that emotional roller coaster of action in me anyway. Or how what's he gonna do? Oh my gosh, and a shooting at the window to even get in the building. And the moment you're like, yes. Oh, crap. I just hadn't seen those beats before. And it was just a marvel. Like, I was like, just like laughing but nervously this kid just in awe of it, but incredible execution on McTiernan. And of course, Bruce Willis and stunt crew, the whole works, everybody is believable. And finally, there's a little bit of a reprieve because he gets the damn thing off. And he's like, Oh, my gosh, whatever he says, After that, I forgot, but another one of classic Maclean lines. And now, Brian, I gotta say, Johnson and Johnson didn't make it. They didn't

Bryan Beasley:

make it. No, yeah. McLean makes his way to the lobby, the helicopter, it blows up and then blow. blows, blows McLean into like the little like water decoration that they have in the lobby. And of course, we cut down to Dwayne T Robinson news. Like, I guess we're gonna need two new FBI guys.

Jason Connell:

Yeah, I know. Yeah. He's, we're gonna need some more FBI guys. I guess. He's just like, Oh, I didn't see that. So funny. And yeah, wherever McLean gets blown into, it's where the party was, but it looks almost like a war movie. Like it. It drops in this water and it looks I was like, Oh, my that was on purpose. very intentional. Yeah.

Bryan Beasley:

I mean, he's in a war zone. I mean, there's Yeah. And they had they'd rigged the elevators like an elevator opens and explodes. Like he's like, changed us cry. Like there's trees fall. He likes those Christmas trees that are falling down. Like the whole building is just coming down. And let's talk about how he looks at this point. He's literally just wearing pants because he's taken off his wife beater. He's wrapped it around is his his poor foot. And he's he's dragging this bloody foot around. He's discussing. He's got blood all over me. He's just been beat the shit up.

Jason Connell:

It's true. Meanwhile, in the bowels of Nakatomi Plaza, we see Argyle

Bryan Beasley:

he's back. Finally, what

Jason Connell:

do you do another he's back, and he oversees the getaway ambulance come out of the back of the Pacific courier truck. And now we see McLean. And Brian. He's got literally two bullets left. Yeah. It's always got a lot of bullets been going off. And now Argyle comes through.

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah. So he basically puts it together that these guys were going to escape pretending to be like paramedics. And he's like, I'm putting it into this. So he drives the limo into the side of the ambulance and jumps out and punches out Theo who was driving at Keio Theo. Kay Odom. Yeah, seriously? And yeah, shakes his hand. He heard his hand on the punch. Yeah, Argyle has he did his party save the day.

Jason Connell:

Now I have the answer to my question about Argylls roll. It was to do this and befriend McLean of course but this was a big thing he spotted it knocked it out. They were trying to pull a cannonball run with the ambulance getaway.

Bryan Beasley:

That's a good one Cannonball Run. Yeah. And again, going back to D'souza this is what they wrote. That's why earlier when he see the terrorists get out of the truck, there's no ambulance in the back of the truck because I hadn't written it yet. I guess he had written a TV movie earlier in his career. And this was like something that he had come up with that some mad bomber was going to escape pretending to be a doctor or something, or a first responder. And so they were like, well, let's just steal that idea. And so they did.

Jason Connell:

We also saw the ambulance getaway in the movie heat, the incredible Michael Mann. Oh, later. Sure. Of course. Yeah. Now there's a showdown with McLean. Our two cowboys, and it's Hans grabs Holly and McClain drops his gun. And then Hans has a bad reference to high noon the 1952 movie he mentions John Wayne, but actually it was Gary Cooper with Grace Kelly. And Brian. I love that he quotes McLean.

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah, he quotes him back as a What did you say? He says it not really. Upper Crust is a up girl. Yay. motherfuck he doesn't even say it's really bad, which is like the whole point. Like there's this whole like classes thing in the movie like the blue collar versus the upper crust Englishman, even though he's German. And of course to the to the in the right of him is the Huey Lewis. Tara. So it's actually two against one How many bullets is he having him? He's only got two bullets only got two bullets. And so we quickly find that after he quotes McLean back to him, McLean sorry. So you know, you would have made a pretty good cowboy yourself and he starts laughing and everyone around the room. It's kind of like everyone kind of takes a breather. And even Holly McLean is like, what's what's happening here, and at that moment, the camera backs up and we see that John has taped his pistol to his back because he doesn't know where to start. And he immediately draws and it's like the old west, he draws shoot Tom's in the shoulder, and then turns and shoots all Huey Lewis in the head right between the eyes. And he goes, Happy Trails Hans and he blows his pistola. It's every Western we've ever seen, but it's not over yet. Just when you think it's over,

Jason Connell:

not over us. It's over for him. He's done that was between the eyes.

Bryan Beasley:

But all Hans when he when he shot Hans in the chest. He read the bullet went through and broke the glass behind him. And of course, he falls out the window, but he's holding on to old Holly, and he's got her by the wrist. And in fact, he's got her by the Rolex watch that the Nakatomi Corporation had given her as a Christmas gift. So of course, John McClane runs over there grabs his wife, and they're struggling. And all in beautiful slow motion. Hans Gruber brings up his gun is going to try to shoot them before he falls to his death. But McLean is able to undo the class on the Rolex. And Saira Nara there goes Hans Gruber as he falls who did a beautiful shot by the way,

Jason Connell:

they did a very good job. Most of those types of scenes are so cheesy, but this was believable. But you saw the documentary could see how they shot it. It looks really cool. And kind of spooky, and, and real, not like oh, that's totally fake. It was really cool.

Bryan Beasley:

You know, Alan Rickman. It was, it was the last shot he had in the film. He fell, it's really him. He fell 40 feet into like a big, you know, Matt, and the stunt guy who had the release on the rope that was holding him, told him, Hey, we're gonna count to three, when we get to three, we'll release it. But in reality, they released it on one. So when you see that fear in his face, yeah, it's real, because he wasn't expected to be dropped at that moment. That's terrifying. So now going back to the watch, and this is why people like is Die Hard. A Christmas movie. And here is the moment that we say yes. And here's the proof in the pudding right here. So we have this corporation, it's all materialism. It's all you know. And that's, that's a main trope without Christmas movies is Oh, word you know, it's, it's all about materials, zones, all about presence, all about getting getting getting, that's what that watch represents. Right? It represents that materialism. But as soon as they can click it off. She's free of it. And she comes back up and they are family. And that's what Christmas really is about. It's not about terrorists, or materialism, or Rolex watches. It's about kissing your husband who's covered in blood. It's about family. I

Jason Connell:

agree. I mean, listen, I'm easy to please. This movie took place on Christmas Eve, therefore, it is a Christmas movie. But that's just me. But I agree with you if you need the extra point. That's a good one. And yeah, materialism be damned to watch the whole bit. And I love the fact that they mentioned it earlier. This Rolex watches John didn't want to see and he couldn't wait to get that damn thing off of her wrist. So yeah, it's perfect. Very poetic. And, and that's the end of Gruber. And the end of all the bad guys. So we think so we think well, before

Bryan Beasley:

we get to that Duane T Robinson gets one more little punch line and course as goobers goobers falling to his daddy. Like, I hope that's not a hostile,

Jason Connell:

so good. I hope that's not a hostage. Yeah, he's just on the sidelines, given color commentary now. At this point, the hostages are all out medics are everywhere. And Brian owl spots

Bryan Beasley:

McLean. Yeah. And you know, it's kind of like, it's like the end of Sleepless in Seattle. They don't even have to speak to each other. They just look at each other and like, Oh, my love. Yeah, I felt that family Christmas. Let's, we're all getting together. And so they go over and they embrace, and they have their moment.

Jason Connell:

I think they lived happily ever after.

Bryan Beasley:

Oh, I think they did two holidays, just the third wheel on third and get out of the way. But then, but then, you know, right at that moment, right? When they're embracing having their moment. I feel like there should have been another like elevator deal. Because all of a sudden, there's Carl and he ain't dead. He looks dead, but he ain't dead.

Jason Connell:

It's like Jason from Friday the 13th. Yes, it's

Bryan Beasley:

very 80s and totally, not really needed. But when it's fun, his face

Jason Connell:

is burnt. And he's come out and somehow he's made it past a lot of people. So there's that and he's got his gun, and he looks like a mess. And he pulls his gun out. But then what happens the unexpected how

Bryan Beasley:

Powell who we earlier found out doesn't draw his gun anymore because he unfortunately had killed a kid who had a ray gun who looked real enough and he draws his gun and puts Carl out of his misery for once and for all that he pulled his gun and saved the day as McLean and Holly hit the deck

Jason Connell:

and it wasn't just one shot. He shot him like four or five times to

Bryan Beasley:

LAPD fashion. He put the guy down. Yeah,

Jason Connell:

he hadn't pulled his gun out since the incident the unfortunate incident which he had shared earlier, which we didn't really talk about, but you just mentioned it shot a kid by mistake that he had a real gun. So he was on desk duty, was afraid to pull his gun but pulls it out saves the day because McLean just takes cover with Holly he no longer has a weapon. He has no bullets left as we know. He's a sitting duck. Yep. And yeah, I probably didn't need that moment. But it was nice to see owl, you know, be triumphant.

Bryan Beasley:

He overcome his fear he can kill again. Yeah.

Jason Connell:

It sets it up for the buddy picture that should have happened.

Bryan Beasley:

That never happened. You're

Jason Connell:

totally correct. That should have been diehard to for Christ's sakes. But anyway, that happened and now Argyle bust out of the garage, which makes me ask, couldn't you done it before? Yeah. Earlier, but it's okay. You can put a you know, it's all right. He bust out comes rolling up and then yes, Richard Thornburg comes in for a quick interview, only to be surprised by

Bryan Beasley:

Holly in my back john kind of like, looks like he's about to punch the guy out and Holly does pop some she does doesn't see a common and then he gets to redeliver, the line he gave earlier when the floor exploded, like did you get that great line, very self deprecating, and it worked?

Jason Connell:

Yeah. And I think that makes for a better TV when he runs that him getting slugged by Holly, you know, here's the heroes wife, and yeah, that's even better. So he got what he wants. And I'm sure he went on to become a huge mogul in the space by now. He's a brand. Totally. And then Argyle takes the couple home and let it snow plays again, a different version.

Bryan Beasley:

He's like, if this is what they have in store for Christmas, I can't wait to see what New Year's is like. Yeah, yeah. And then kicks in, let it snow and the whole time while they're out there. There's all these different little things like you know, they get out of the building, and we have the meeting of Al Powell we have the killing of Carl, at one point Duane T Robinson comes up he's like gonna put McLean the handcuffs but then Carl starts shooting and shooting and Powell stuff, and he got Thornburg the whole time. All you have all these little things and they button up everything, they really do button up every little story that has arisen, which is nice. And the whole time paper is coming down, because it doesn't snow in LA. So it's like all this paper from the building that is on fire from all the different explosions. I thought it was a really great touch another another little aspect that the set designers threw in there, there really weren't.

Jason Connell:

And I will say this though, we left one storyline open. What do you think happened to Theo

Bryan Beasley:

when he got punched out? I know, they caught him.

Jason Connell:

They caught him. Okay, so assuming these are actually two terrorists,

Bryan Beasley:

that that survived. There's Theo who gets punched out and you see him like, hit the deck in his glasses fall off. And there's an there was another terrorist when McLean comes out, he's only got two bullets. There's actually three terrorists there. And one is running with a bunch of bearer bonds in his hand. And Bruce Willis, like, hit some of the butt of the machine gun. And that's how he kind of announces to Hans and Huey Lewis said he's arrived. Yeah, and that guy never dies. So there's actually two terrorists that actually lived through the the Nakatomi Plaza incident.

Jason Connell:

So how long do you think they were in prison? Assuming they're both caught? Well, that's

Bryan Beasley:

a good question. Both for the rest of their lives, right?

Jason Connell:

Probably still. But the smart I thought if he come to a man, no, he's knocked out call but it took them a while to get down to him. And there's a chance I mean, there's a chance for Theo,

Bryan Beasley:

there's a chance that he could have I mean, how there's a chance to the guy got who got punched out got another two. I mean, Carl almost walked away. walked onto the machine gun his hand. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Duane T Robinson not too smart. No

Jason Connell:

cell that is it. An incredible movie. Thank you John McTiernan, and everyone else who produced it, who acted in it, who worked on it, who promoted it, an incredible, incredible movie, and it really holds the standard for action movies.

Bryan Beasley:

100%. I mean, there's diehard everything after this point, they cut this movie Up and rehash it to us. They're still doing it. I feel like a die hard in the White House. You know, they're still, they're still doing it. So they've never garnered the magic of the first one. Like it's no, it was all perfect. It just worked out. They pick the right building. They pick the right casting, you know, everyone in town said no to it. So it had to be Bruce Willis, and he was the perfect person for it. Alan Rickman is first movie, he's the perfect but I mean, he's up there with like Darth Vader like he's that good of a bad guy. So it's one of my all time favorite films. And yeah, thank you so much for letting me be on the podcast to talk about Jason. I truly appreciate my

Jason Connell:

pleasure. I needed to have a diehard expert to go on this road with me on this journey. And you're the guy. I got a little quick trivia here. Despite being the first movie in a franchise that made Bruce Willis, a megastar. Diehard is actually a sequel. The original film the detective was based on the novel of the same name by Roderick Thorpe. Detective Joe Leland played by Frank Sinatra was one of the first movies of the late 60s and early 70s that featured a more realistic approach to police work. Now, because of his contract for this film, Sinatra was actually offered the chance to start and nothing lasts forever, also written by Thorpe, and later became diehard. Now thankfully, the 73 year old Sinatra passed, that would have been a different movie, all together very, very different movie. Now in the spring of 1987, producer Joel Silver and director John McTiernan attended a performance of the play Dangerous Liaisons, in which Alan Rickman played the evil Vic Tomie de Valmont. And in doing so they immediately recognized that they had their Hans Gruber and Brian how right? They were.

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah, I mean, it's obviously this is a star making vehicle for Bruce Willis. But this was a career making vehicle for Alan Rickman like he, he's a character actor to the end, but he's in so much stuff. I mean, it was an easy transition. And he also played the bad guy. He said he was in the Robin Hood movie with Kevin Costner the camera the next year, like, he redid this character a few times. And then finally he you know, he was really known as like, Oh, this guy can play anything.

Jason Connell:

I think he was like a movie with Tom Selleck. Quigley down under wasn't even the bad guy in that. Yeah,

Bryan Beasley:

he was the bad guy in that too. You're totally right. Yeah. They're all just diehard rip offs. They're just like, oh, we need a smart buy guy. But, you know, again, it has to be on the page as well. Yeah. And it's definitely on the page and die. Oh, yeah.

Jason Connell:

Couple more, as in the film, Reginald Val Johnson didn't meet Bruce Willis until the end of the movie. Didn't know that. I really liked it. Those were genuine looks. Genuine smiles. genuine love. Like that's good. Yeah, it was really cool realism, if you will. And the last thing I have the line EBk a motherfucker is actually used in all five diehard movies.

Bryan Beasley:

Is that right? No, that guy knew that. And it seems appropriate. Right?

Jason Connell:

It does. Now it would not work. If it was I'll be back in all the Terminator movies. The weird.

Bryan Beasley:

Yeah, well, they did something different. Like they have other characters they have but to tell you right, you became a beep I think even shows up in the car battery camera. Just

Jason Connell:

it? I haven't seen that one. That's great. So that's all I got. And it was just such a pleasure. Anything else you want to add before we sign off?

Bryan Beasley:

Nah, man, I'm just again. Thank you so much for letting me be a part of this. I have been looking forward to this all week when you asked me I was like, finally Yes, I'm gonna we're gonna sharpen some teeth and die hard. This is great. And I gotta tell you man like we're really watching it as closely as I did. I actually learned a few things that I didn't I didn't even know before. So there you go.

Jason Connell:

Well, thank you so much for listening and please be sure to subscribe rate and review the show wherever you get your podcast. You can also follow us on social media at let's talk movies or check out our other shows a just curious media.com So without further ado, please enjoy diehard

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