John McClane — American hero

Its star was a TV actor unable to parlay his small-screen moment (“Moonlighting”) into big-screen success (“Blind Date,” “Sunset”). Its villain was unknown this side of the Atlantic. One of its writers had done mostly TV (“Lucan,” “Knight Rider”), while the other had no credits to his name. Its source material was a novel, a sequel actually, about an aging detective named Joe Leland visiting his daughter and grandchildren in L.A. It was called “Nothing Lasts Forever” but the filmmakers decided to change the title to something punchier and punnier.

They called it “Die Hard.”

Released in July 1988, it made more than $80 million and spawned an entire sub-genre of movies: “Die Hard” on a boat (“Under Siege”), “Die Hard” on a plane (“Passenger 57”), “Die Hard” on the president’s plane (“Air Force One”). Basically: a group of bad guys take over a small enclosed space, and one good guy, who’s there more or less by accident, tries to stop them.

P.S. He always does.

Shoeless Johnny
So what is it about that first “Die Hard” anyway? Why did it work? Why are we talking about a fourth “Die Hard” installment rather than, say, “The Principal IV” starring Jim Belushi?

For starters, the grandfather-detective named Joe Leland morphed into a father-cop named John McClane. Everyone can get behind a cop.

He’s about as “regular guy” as you can get. He rides in the front of the limo. He checks out centerfolds while running for his life. He likes Roy Rogers. Hell, he’s the kind of guy who would like “Die Hard.” One wonders if that isn’t a key to success: Would your lead character like the movie he’s in? Then your audience will probably like him.

They gave him little vulnerabilities. He’s tough, but afraid to fly. He smokes, but carries around a giant teddy bear for his kids. He’s not bad-looking but has marital troubles.

Best of all: They take away his shoes. That’s smart. When the shooting starts, he’s still busy in the plush 30^th-floor bathroom making “fists with his toes,” as his airplane seat-mate suggested he do to overcome anxiety, and he doesn’t get them back for the rest of the film. It’s a small thing that adds up to a large thing. I remember cringing in the theater when he has to pluck glass shards from the bottom of his bloody feet.

The wise-ass in the back row
Then they take this one regular guy (without shoes) and stick him between two groups. “Two groups?” you ask. Yes, two groups.

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The first group is, of course, a super-efficient international team of terrorists, led by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), who was recently voted the 46^th greatest villain of all time by the American Film Institute.

These guys are creepy, less because of the glowering silent types like Alexander Gudonov’s Karl, and more because of the ones who whistle while they work, such as Clarence Gilyard, Jr.’s Theo, who helped spawn a generation of onscreen black computer hackers. “Oh my god, the quarterback is toast!” he shouts enthusiastically as the cops’ RV is decimated by a rocket launcher. You seriously want to deck the dude.

That sports metaphor isn’t a mistake, by the way. Theo talks Lakers to calm the security guard until Karl can shoot him. Eddie (the Huey Lewis-looking guy) bitches about a college football game to throw off Sgt. Powell. What could be more infuriating to “Die Hard’s” mostly male audience? The terrorists are using our love of sports against us!

The smartest guy in the room is always Hans. “You want money?” Takagi asks incredulously. “What kind of terrorists are you?”

“Who said we were terrorists?” Hans chuckles.

When McClane shows up with his HO HO HO message, Hans knows he’s no security guard. Captured, he fakes an American accent and manners. He knows the FBI playbook. He has a classical (read: European) education and fancy (read: European) suits and waxes eloquent on a bankrupt American culture. All of which makes him a perfect foil for McClane and his pop cultural references. “Ehh! Sorry Hans, wrong guess. Would you like to go for Double Jeopardy where the scores can really change?” It’s the wise-ass in the back row making fun of the uptight teacher. Yippee-ki-yay, indeed.

Ricky, Rocky and Will
One can argue that John McClane is an amalgamation of three of the most quintessential heroes in American cinema. Numbers 4, 5 and 7 on that AFI list, to be exact.

No. 5 is Marshal Will Kane (Gary Cooper) in “High Noon.” Most of our cinematic heroes are lone gunmen, and Kane is the epitome. He’s the guy trapped between two groups: Frank Miller and his gang, who want revenge on Kane, and the townspeople too cowardly to help. Which is why he’s out there by himself.

Why is McClane out there by himself? Because he’s also trapped between two groups: the terrorists, who want to kill him, and the townspeople who are too stupid to help.

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Seriously, how many incompetent people are involved in L.A. policework anyway? When McClane finally gets through on an emergency reserve channel, the women on the other end chastise him for using the channel in the first place. Even after they hear gunfire they send only one black-and-white to investigate. Once the cops show up, they blame McClane. Once the FBI shows up they play right into the villains’ hands.

They’re supermacho. They rush in where McClane fears to tread. “An A-7 scenario,” say the FBI Johnsons, misreading the situation. “Kick ass,” says Deputy Police Chief Dwayne Robinson before disaster strikes. “Sprechen sie talk?” says Ellis before getting shot in the head. All of these guys think they’re heroes. They think they can save the situation.

The beauty of John McClane is that he doesn’t. In this sense he’s reminiscent of No. 4 on the AFI list: Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) in “Casablanca.” There’s a great isolationist streak in the American psyche and Rick epitomizes it. “I stick my neck out for nobody,” he says famously. Then the world goes to hell and he has to get involved.

Ditto McClane. If Hans just opens the front door, he’ll leave. The L.A. cops tell him to lie low and he’s more than willing. But things keep going wrong. The bad guys are superefficient and everyone else is superincompetent, and there he is, stuck in the middle with a machine gun. Plus Holly, his wife, is down there. Even if she won’t take his name.

So how does this one regular guy without shoes beat 12 superefficient terrorists when he doesn’t want to be there and none of the townspeople are smart enough to help him? He wins the way Rocky Balboa (AFI’s No. 7) wins. He gets hit and doesn’t go down. He endures. Subsequent “‘Die Hard’ in a...” movies starred martial artists like Steven Segal and Wesley Snipes, people with specialized knowledge, but McClane knows nothing special. At the end of the movie he’s as battered as Rocky is at the end of “Rocky,” and you get that great reaction shot from Holly when she sees what her man has been through to save her. OK, now will you take his name?

All of which goes to the heart of who American men believe themselves to be. We’re not smart. We’re not talented. We can’t keep our wives in check. We don’t even want to be here. But when the, eh, stuff, hits the fan, yeah, what the hell. Since nobody else is doing anything.

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