Die Hard 4.0

We all want to be able to tell our boss to fuck off don’t we? Unfortunately, we’re not only bound by the bureaucratic protocol of our workplaces, we also have mortgages to pay, cars to pay for and pets to feed.

That’s why we admire the loose cannons of Hollywood so much. Confined by the ‘red tape’, the rules and regulations of the bureaucrats, the do’s and don’ts imposed by society, but Die Hard’s John McLane and Lethal Weapon’s Martin Riggs all give a big “fuck you” to them all.

Running around town with their phallic pistols, pointing their big metallic cocks at terrorists and crooks, it’s something that we’d all love to be able to do.

I watched Lethal Weapon last night, and it finally all fell into place. I’d never even realised it before, but it became so clear last night that Lethal Weapon is nothing more than a Reagan era propaganda flick.

The white man rejecting suicide and alcoholism to help a black family, evil sinners (prostitutes) throwing themselves from balconies or getting blown up, the evils of drugs procrastinated mainly by the Aryan antagonist, Mr. Joshua (maybe taking his name from the military leader who succeeded Moses) and the drugs fought with all the vigour of a Reagan “War On Drugs” policy.

The whole film is centred around Christmas time as well, the time of year when we celebrate the birth of Santa and the death of Christ, the ending showing the black family inviting in the oddball Christian actor (and his dog) for Christmas dinner.

The film actually stinks. It’s as if Reagan dusted off his Hollywood threads and got together to write the script. All of the themes are there. Reagan was a religious Republican, just like aforementioned racist, Mel Gibson.

And this is a similar theme with Die Hard, with real life Republican, Bruce Willis. Again the first two films are set around Christmas time. Hans Gruber’s rag-tag set of criminals, with their token black man (the computer expert) and the Aryan, “Karl”, mirroring Gary Busey’s “Mr. Joshua”, are just as evil as the fuckers who stick a bullet in Hunsacker in Lethal Weapon. It’s all highly original, McLane working alongside two black men, (the cop and the limo driver in Die Hard I, the short guy and the leader of the army people for a bit in Die Hard II, and the ‘buddy-cop’ style of the Lethal Weapon series mirrored with Samuel L Jackson in III), raging his personal war on terror, fighting against the criminals for the sake of family values and wanting to be with his family at Christmas (in both I and II).

Riggs and McLane are pretty much the same character and all the themes are pretty much the same. The Die Hard series shows the battles between Capitalism and Communism, with former member of the Volksfrei movement, Gruber (representing Communism) sticking a bullet in the head of Takagi, the leader of the capitalist empire, whilst Lethal Weapon does its bit with the free world mercenaries of “Shadow Company”, sticking the bullet in the capitalist money launderer, Hunsacker.

Die Hard plays on the “buddy-cop” premise, but not to the extent of Lethal Weapon; the big fat twinky eating cop stereotype of “Powell”, is not as much of a main character as Danny Glover’s “Murtaugh”. However, just as Powell reaches for his penis shooter when Karl comes back to life, Murtaugh and Riggs also do the exact same thing when Mr. Joshua comes back for one more “shot at the title” in Lethal Weapon. So where Lethal Weapon’s protagonists are equal throughout, Die Hard’s Powell does manage to get back a few redemption points by killing off a main character whilst beating his fear of ever using his gun again.

So that’s pretty much it. Two white loose cannons, plagued with their own personal demons, thinking outside of the box, working against the rule book and the law when necessary, using whatever methods they can to defeat evil, removed from their female counterparts but using this removal as motivation, accepting the help of a black, using corny one liner’s against the most dangerous men in the world, escaping inescapable circumstances, causing thousands of pounds worth of damage.

But remember, the next time your boss gets you in the office and tries to give you a written warning for internet usage, or using your company mobile phone too much, or because you’re always late, don’t light a cigarette and tell them to fuck off, and don’t go blowing the building up. Leave that to Hollywood.

Lethal Weapon 4 was a horrible film, which destroyed the series. I do hope Die Hard 4.0 won’t do the same. Either way, expect cliches, stereotypes, one-liners and the inevitable heroics.