Just like there is a consensus why Super Mario World tops most the lists of the best video game that has ever been made, and we agree on the brilliance of the holy trinity A Space Odyssey, Apocalypse Now and The Shawshank Redemption, we also know collectively there is one action movie that tops them all: Die Hard. They may not be your personal favorites. Maybe not even make it to your own top ten. But we kinda agree that on average, these works of art are the best in their kind. So today, let's have a look at what makes John McTiernan, the director of Die Hard, so great by looking at his entire work.
McTiernan has an impressive list of films he directed including Predator, The Thomas Crown Affair (1999 remake), The Hunt for Red October, Basic, The Last Action Hero, Medicine Man and The Thirteenth Warrior. He's had a couple of flops too, such as Rollerball, but even they still count as good examples of his overall style: tactile, visceral, confrontational, well-paced and always with a surprise up its sleeve.
Of course, Die Hard is the movie he is best known for. Regarded as the greatest action film of all time by general consensus, many of us see it again around Christmas each year, despite the stark insistence of Bruce Willis that it is not a Christmas movie. We'll talk about Die Hard too, but that film has been discussed a lot already (with Chris Stuckmann his review topping it), so we'll focus on the broader style of his films, since that is where the best storytelling lessons are. So without further ado, these are the storytelling insights that I feel set McTiernan apart as an artist.
Lesson One - Never do the same thing twice
Although there are clear similarities in pacing, dialogue and filming styles between all of his films (which we'll highlight throughout) a key component of any good director is that they don't end up doing the same thing twice, and McTiernan is no exception. All of his movies are action-packed for sure, but the stories of The Hunt for Red October, Medicine Man, The Thomas Crown Affair, Basic and Predator, to name a few, are vastly different, if not incomparable. The stakes go from a hostage situation at the Nakatomi Plaza in LA, to medicine that can cure the world, through stopping criminal soldiers, to theft of priceless art, through fighting an alien, all the way to - based on a true story - catching a rogue nuclear submarine... it's always action packed, but never the same.
What we end up with is this neat little insight: when you apply the same style on different substances, you (mostly) get great and intriguing results.
Lesson Two - Make every detail impactful and visceral
McTiernan has this uncanny ability to make his actors 'ooze' the emotion he wants to convey to the audience without them over-acting. There are moments when they almost are but they never cross that line. It is both a compliment to the many great actors that have featured in his films, as well as a compliment to him as a director, that at those times that he really pushes his message, you can almost touch the beads of sweat dripping from a characters' brow. Often, he uses close-ups in pivotal moments, swinging the camera around, or using tilted angles, to 'push' his message across in unmissable ways. Truthfully, it's kinda on the nose. But somehow he pulls it off without it feeling as such.
It's simple, straightforward filming that has been done countless of times by countless of other directors. But he makes it special by choosing his moments. The end result is a visceral, kinetic feel to his movies, that makes them almost 'touchable'. I mean... dropping a dead body on a police car? Burning a priceless painting? Launching a submarine out of the water? It's on the nose, in your face even. All of it. But your nose, your face... it's all super close to the action.
Lesson Three - Dialogue is often 'crossed'
Although this is not technically his invention, McTiernan deftly uses an original Steven Spielberg technique I like to call Crossed Dialogue where many people are talking at each other, without any of them listening and registering what the other person is saying. You'd think that this is a big no-no in film making and screenwriting, but it's actually one of the best techniques to get your audience involved, because it is so close to real life. Spielberg uses this all the time, which can give a very natural and believable feel to his films, simply because in real life, we also often talk at each other without listening. McTiernan does the same in several of his films, but it is most notable in the War Room scene in The Hunt for Red October, where a bunch of high level generals are arguing and yelling at each other, before our main protagonist Jack Ryan (played by Alec Baldwin) starts to yell "You son of a bitch" louder and louder as he's having an epiphany... that shuts them all up.
Lesson Four - Pacing is the key to action
As you've probably suspected by now, I love McTiernan films. In fact, in my top ten films of all time I have four of his movies, and for a few decades, I was unaware that they shared the same director. I was drawn to his style, without me knowing there was his style I was being drawn too. So I mean it when I say that I think McTiernan is an absolute master of pacing. There is rarely, if ever, a split second of his films off-beat. Even Rollerball through all of its flaws, still has notably good pacing.
In terms of editing I still think that Coppola's film Apocalypse Now - The Director's Cut is the best paced and edited movie of all times, probably because the actors are in such a natural state of acting that most of the 'speed' (or lack thereof) of a scene is already at a very good place. Still, I have to give credit to McTiernan his pacing, which in my point of view is best exemplified in the final revealing ten minutes of Basic, the last hour or so of the time-sensitive Die Hard With a Vengeance and the truly phenomenal 'tack' that he makes with Arnold Schwarzenegger - switching from being the hunted to becoming the hunter - in Predator.
Yet it is without a doubt the final 'return' theft sequence in The Thomas Crown Affair, edited on Nina Simone's song Sinnerman, that tops it all. If you take just one thing out of this article, please make it that sequence.
Lesson Five - Make dialogue deeply confrontational
Although conflict is of course lesson number one in all storytelling, not every script will benefit from making stuff all too confrontational. Yet especially with The Thomas Crown Affair, we see just how great of a technique this confrontational dialogue can be. The Thomas Crown Affair is very definitely an action packed film, but it doesn't feature guns, physical fights and whatnot. It's action is all 'under the radar' with theft, misdirection, love interests and crucially: dialogue that is extremely daring.
In essence (and without spoiling anything, you should really, really watch the film yourself) the film poses two people on opposite sides who are also - ironically - deeply attracted to one another. What follows is dialogue in which neither of them can tell the other person the truth. Yet they do need to convey that truth to the opposing side. They cannot say it. But the can communicate it through other means than just words. So, what do they use? Gestures, sarcasm, jokes, looks, innuendo, irony... the sparks aren't just flying between Rene Russo and Pierce Brosnan, they are firing up the dialogue as well. Especially in the dialogue they don't say. And this technique is seen throughout all of McTiernan's feature films, really setting it apart from many other directors.
Make the story feel alive
When you put everything together you end up with a through-line: at all really feels alive. And although he is definitely not the only director from the eighties and nineties who pulls this off, he is one of the foremost proponents of this 'aliveness' that is so typical from that movie era. Somehow we've never been able to make action movies quite the same as in that period. And although McTiernan is often still criticized by Hollywood itself (which we suspect is the reason he stopped making films in the first place) he is the man who made stars like Rene Russo, Pierce Brosnan, John Travolta, Alec Baldwin, Lorraine Bracco, Alan Rickman, Antonio Banderas and Sean Connery, Samuel L. Jackson and Bruce Willis all twice, shine brighter than ever.
Heck, he even got a famously wooden-acting weightlifting champion from Austria to play the most intense action performance of all time in the last 30 minutes of Predator... in complete silence.
That has to count for something.
Love, as always,
Rogier
And check out my latest book The Whole Story - The Ultimate Guide to Storytelling!
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