DIE HARD did for action movies what 12 ANGRY MEN had already done for drama. The three Aristotelian unions of action, time and space create a very dramatic story. It's set in a contained environment over the course of a few hours with one main character set against a group of opponents. The concept was so simple, that it spawned an entirely new subgenre -- the Die Hard Scenario. For me, the chief idea is, to hurl a cop from a different city into this kind of situation. It's believeable that someone with his training could actually pull those stunts off. It's not his jurisdiction, but since the terrorists are holding his wife hostage, McLane has a very good excuse (in the mind of the audience) to use everything at his disposal against the bad guys.

Sven, you are so right, it's such a clean concept: Contained space, short time span, simple setup of Protagonist vs. Nemeses. And yet written so well. To your second point, McClane is an underdog, and that is almost a necessity for action movies.

What do you mean by "and yet"? That's an interesting point about the underdog. I agree, it always gives us a good justification for the violence, because the audience is rooting for the main character. How is the situation in buddy pictures? Are there two underdogs or one underdog, one veteran? What do you prefer?

This is such a great script for so many reasons but I particularly love the way we get these great opposites - law enforcement vs terrorist, blue-collar vs yuppies, lo-fi vs hi-fi and pistol vs machine guns. All help to push the odds of him getting through it. Ironically the fact that the terrorists are so powerful and take over the block so easily enables the terrorists to become the establishment and the cop to become the rogue, so he is able to cause mayhem to the new establishment - cue explosion.

On another note, a podcast I listen to (think it was Grantland's "Hollywood Prospectus") has a question between the hosts "could a movie like diehard work now?" considering that there are relatively low stakes (as opposed to "The Avengers" or any other number of films where the world is at stake.) I guess the bigger question I have is "Are viewers/studios only interested in these 'fate of the world' shows?" or "are the 'small stakes' films just harder to make/market?"

[…] It’s a great script. The Blacklist have a great script analysis with link to the screenplay here. It’s one of best action films of all time and formed the blueprint for The Raid, Dredd and […]