John McClane (Bruce Willis) is a New York City cop. During Christmas holiday he is traveling to Los Angeles to visit his two kids, Lucy and John Jr. (Taylor Fry and Noah Land), and his estranged wife, Holly Gennaro McClane (Bonnie Bedelia). Holly works for the prestigious Nakatomi Corporation under its head executive, Joseph Yoshinobu Takagi (James Shigeta). Holly is required to attend the company Christmas party and is unable to meet John at the airport. Takagi sends a car service to pick him up and bring him to the Nakatomi headquarters. His newly hired driver is Argyle (De’voreaux White). Argyle brings John to the Nakatomi building and waits in the car in the garage in case he is needed.
While the festivities are in full force, a large box truck enters the Nakatomi building garage while a car pulls up out front. Two men exit the car, Karl (Alexander Godunov) and Theo (Clarence Gilyard Jr.). They enter the building and shoot the guards. Theo then locks down the building. Exiting from the truck are several armed men, led by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman). The men spread out. Each one has a job, secure the building, cut communications, both incoming and outgoing, and cut any alarms. When everything is secure, several heavily armed men enter the Nakatomi offices on the 30th floor. Shots are fired.
As Gruber and his men round up the partygoers, John, who was in another part of the building, hides until he can assess the situation. As he watches he sees Gruber question Takagi. At first Takagi thought Gruber and his men were terrorists. When Gruber asks Takagi for the codes to the vault, he figures out that the invaders are mere thieves and are after the 640 million dollars in negotiable bearer bonds tucked away in the safe. Takagi refuses to give him the code, so Gruber shoots him. With Takagi dead, Gruber is forced to drill his way into the vault. John then realizes that he is in a battle with sophisticated criminals that are willing to kill everyone to get what they want. Gruber finds out that someone else is in the building. John is forced to become a one-man army against a band of trained assassins.
“Die Hard” was released in 1988 and was directed by John McTiernan. It is an American action thriller dark comedy and mayhap a Christmas movie. The film was based on the 1979 novel “Nothing Lasts Forever” by Roderick Thorp. The movie spawned four sequels. A fifth sequel was planned but later cancelled. The film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2017.
There’s a reason why there were a bunch of sequels to this movie, and the reason is Bruce Willis. This was his first action film, but it set the pace for many of his future films. Willis had a way of showing his he-man persona that revealed the character’s vulnerability while still being a kick-ass. He was never ‘fresh-from-the-fight’ but was usually ‘tired and bruised’. This made him relatable to audiences. Granted, the things his character did would have resulted in death several times over, but in the movies being exhausted is sufficient.
Fox Plaza in Century City, Los Angeles, served as the setting for Nakatomi Plaza. Willis’ wardrobe for the film consisted of a pair of dark dress pants and a white “wife-beater” undershirt. The wardrobe department had on hand 17 undershirts, in various states of grubbiness, for Mr. Willis.