With Sly Stallone’s bizarre announcement that he’d like Bruce Willis to appear as a villain in The Expendables 2 (because apparently flogging a dead horse once just isn’t enough) we here at Hecklerspray decided to man up and have ourselves a good, ol’ fashioned Die Hard marathon, to re-acquaint ourselves with one of our favourite action movie icons.
But something troubled us deeply, Die Hard, Die Hard 2: Die Harder, Die Hard 3: Die Hard With a Vengeance and Die Hard 4.0: Life Free or Die Hard, the scenes seemed to be a lot more ridiculous than we remembered. Happily this meant that we can bring you the top 10 most ridiculous scenes from the Die Hard series.
10. Kevin Smith – Die Hard 4.0
As much as well all love Kevin Smith, he doesn’t really belong in a Die Hard film. Die Hard films star people like Samuel L. Jackson and Alan Rickman, not Silent Bob. His extended cameo was also partly responsible for the film Cop Out, which is another reason to hate his character, plus he makes people call him Warlock and is referred to as McClane and Farrell’s only hope, which is just a bit too geeky, even for us.
Maths isn’t my strongpoint, truth be told it isn’t a lot of people’s strongpoint, so how a cop who’s too stupid to wear anything other than a vest at Christmas and a middle aged man who still works as a shop assistant manage to solve this puzzle is beyond me.
8. Jumping off the Nakatomi plaza – Die Hard
In one of the most iconic scenes from the Die Hard quadrilogy our favourite New York Cop jumps from the exploding roof of the Nakatomi Plaza skyscraper whilst using a fire hose as a safety line, inadvertently giving some nut-cases the idea for BASE jumping. Miraculously the weight of a fully grown man falling doesn’t result in the hose simply breaking off and letting him fall to his death, it holds on for just long enough to give him time to get back inside… typical.
7. The Military Go AWOL – Die Hard 2
The Army Special Forces team lead by John Amos are called in to deal with the terrorists who are hiding in a little church just outside the airport. But wait, they’ve been using blanks, because they’re the bad guys too! Yep, the cavalry are on the take and have decided to turn their back on their country, kill one of their own men for some unknown reason and fly off into the sunset with a dictator.
6. John Mclane vs Water Pressure – Die Hard With A Vengeance
John McClane might have finally met his match as he tries to outrun millions of gallons of water rushing down an underground tunnel in a dump truck. Dump Truck vs millions of gallons of fast flowing water and yet he still survives, by being fired out of a manhole no less, how does any of that make sense? Surely the water pressure and the metal manhole cover would have crushed him to death, but no, not our John, his skull is made from Steel.
5. Blowing Up A Jumbo Jet – Die Hard 2
At the end of Die Hard 2: Die-Harder-than-you-would-have-died-originally-even-though-that-doesn’t-make-sense-because-you’d-have-died-the-first-time it appears as if the bad guys have managed to escape. Until McClane turns up with his trusty Zippo to make them explode in the most over the top way possible. Out of all the weapons he had access too, he chose a zippo to destroy a plane filled with evil soldiers.
4. Killing That Helicopter With A Car – Die Hard 4.0
Apparently the reason John McClane chose to fling a car into a Helicopter was because he was out of bullets, not because he’s so hard that the laws of physics have to bend in his presence to accommodate all that testosterone.
3. John McClane Survives Explosion – Die Hard 2
Our ultimate hardman is caught between a rock and a hard place. Inside the cockpit he is hiding in is a live grenade and outside it is a group of Special Armed Forces Soldiers baying for his blood. Rather than throw the grenade back out and hope to take out some of the soldiers McClane decides to eject at the same moment the grenade goes off, providing a brilliant escape strategy and once again proving John McClane’s vest is indestructable.
2. Jumping onto a plane – Die Hard 4.0
This one is surely the most self explanatory of the lot. John McClane, a 135 year old New York cop leaps from a crumbling freeway exit ramp onto a fighter jet. I don’t care who you are, that’s a special kind of retarded.
1. The Rest of Die Hard 4.0
Let’s face it, this film is a joke,?John McClane has a smart-ass sidekick and is older than time itself. Plus it’s about computer hackers, it’s basically just Bruce Willis and Justin Long vs 4chan.
Mike Cauthon says
You guys blew it with the Die Hard top 10. How could you leave out McLains tank top tee shirt magically changing form white to olive green half way through the movie, Come on, If that isn’t wort a top 10 mention what is?
Kris Silver says
I debated whether or not to put that in, but decided it was more a movie mistake than a ridiculous scene.
Mike Cauthon says
Maybe a rediculous movie mistake. How about a title for the next Die Hard, maybe “Die harderererererer…….er or Die Already. Have a good one.
Tall Cool One says
There are a lot of unbelievable scenes in the “Die Hard” movies and if you had seen any of them, you would probably have listed them. First off, 8. fire hoses are made of a metal mesh inside. 7. For the money. 3. There were 18 grenades “three each”, you obviously never watched this movie. 1. My father is over 70 and still works as a carpenter, building houses etc. You come off as a bitter young kid.
Peter says
The tank top wasn’t a mistake, it was due to the fact that they cut out the scene in which his tank top gets dirty, the scene didn’t work, they knew all about it. I am aware that major mistakes happen but give the guys a little more credit. Most people don’t even notice it because when it comes down to it, like the filmmakers, they don’t really care. That Die Hard was one of the highest grossing films, making something like $220M from a $28M budget, expertly shot, directed, cut together, with phenomenal sound and score, nominated for four or five oscars and still stands up (although dating rapidly) as one of the greatest action/adventure films of all time is probably why most people don’t give a flying fu*k about what colour his singlet is.
Peter says
Well said ‘Tall Cool One’ a term one might consider using in this instance is ‘Suspension Of Disbelief’. It is a prerequisite for almost every action film ever made, it is about the impossible, doing the improbable and the completely implausible for entertainment. Even is Shakespearian England, audiences had to suspend their disbelief as a young woman dressed as man, the audience knew, they knew what they were in for but it didn’t and shouldn’t stop you enjoying someone’s work.
Dillonemesoftly says
Totally agree with Tall Cool one and Peter. Kris Silver, for somebody writing about Die Hard you clearly know very little about it. If you are going to write about it, at least describe accurately what happens instead of twisting what actually happens in the scene to suit your own ends. On the water jug puzzle, I managed to solve it as 12-year old kid when I first saw the movie. But you’re right, it really is “ridiculous” that two grown men (one of which who has already foiled muliple intelligent criminals in his lifetime) could solve it too. To be honest I just couldn’t be bothered to go through the rest of your top 10. And anyway, as Peter commented, the whole point of an action film is for the hero to do the unbelievable! I hope in Die Hard 5 McClane just goes to his local shop where he foils a local kid shoplifting. Maybe even with a shoulder charge?! Oh yes, that would be rivoting.
Charlie says
Funny list! Incidentally, the reason the army guys killed one of their own in 2 is because he wasn’t one of them. The dialogue makes that pretty darn clear, as apparently they’d formed some kind of unit-wide pact in Geneva while the guy killed was a new soldier and thus wasn’t in on it.
Gerard Holst says
I think that you took the wrong way to do this top 10. Die Hard is about cool violence and nonsense action filmed in a way that makes you scream YIPPY KAY YAY MOTHER FC**ER!! YYEAAHHH!!! So stupid facts must be really stupid, like to put a brick of C4 inside a geek’s computer and pretend that he doesn’t realize about it. Or the “warlock” who doesn’t know who John McClaine is, I mean that was really stupid, what kind of geek in the Die Hard universe wouldn’t know about McClaine???!!