Episode 005: Die Hard
Ho Ho Ho
In this week’s episode Alex and Raz talk about one of the quintessential action movies of all time. Does its eighties-ness help or hurt it? Is John McClane a regular guy that’s just having a bad Christmas? And, most importanly, is it better or worse than Back to the Future?
The Whiteboard Podcast 
Can someone tell Raz that this is an action film, it isn’t meant to be water-tight logical. It is meant to be thrilling and occasionally funny, while saying a little bit about the human condition, and it was exactly that. And it is so great that they made one fantastic sequel that almost equals the original, one passable sequel, and one sequel filmed in Denver.
The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable prove that Bruce Willis is a better actor than Michael J. Fox.
wow…. raz is SOOOO wrong…
of course Alex you’re wrong too because you backed down to him.
“ok.. that was a little bit ‘action movie’ ” ????? Where’s your backbone?
Here’s a couple of lines to try out the next time he starts jeering at a good movie:
– “Yeah…. that was a little bit AWESOME!”
– “Meagan Fox tried to audition for this movie but she locked herself IN her car again… funny story, turns out the keys were in the ignition the whole time”
– “If you can spare an hour from your busy schedule of being such a pansy I’d like to introduce you to a man sometime.”
In terms of logic; what Die Hard brings to the table that most action movies don’t is “practical logic”. If someone has a gun you know why they have it and where they’ve been keeping it. If there’s glass on the floor there are consequences. When a fringe character stops a van from getting away you know why he’s there and how he knows what’s going on.
Methods of communication, the logic of the heist, and the interaction of the environment are all structured into the plot in a way that bridges the gap between life and movie magic.