I’m back at Does This Still Work?, where I finally get around to watching Die Hard, and I’m here to tell you: it’s got all the elements of a Christmas movie, just set against the heartwarming action of a hostage situation. The part we should really be concerned about is the inspirational B-story of a cop who learns how to kill again, and then must immediately be restrained from opening fire on an unarmed child a second time. Reginald VelJohnson is the real action hero here, because all action films are about old men given, at long last, impunity to kill and affirm their power to the world that would defy them. Bruce Willis is just a man trying to get home to see his family for the holidays. Anyway: yes, Die Hard is a Christmas movie, and we prove it in the podcast.
…a little bit. Mostly we riff on the plot, George gets ardently anti-cop, and I just want to talk about how great James Shigeta and Hart Bochner are as Takagi and Ellis. Why do we have all these unnecessary Star Wars projects about where Han Solo came from or where Boba Fett’s going while I still linger here, wondering about the Nakatomi Trading prequel where these two take a scrappy startup from a $500 investment to a big ol’ Rolex-slingin’ yuppie enclave?