Eric Lichtenfeld, Blowing Up All Those Familiar Places: Terror and the Confined Arena

(In Action Speaks Louder)

A few chapters later, Lichtenfeld addresses Die Hard and, as he puts it, the "Die Hard-On-a-Something" film, which adapts the basic formula to a new setting - Under Siege is Die Hard on a boat, and so on. He usefully analyses the formula which defines Die Hard and Die Hard 2, and notes that due to the "everyman" quality of John McClane (and most heroes of the subgenre) sequels pose an interesting challenge. In my discussion of the franchise, I'll have to consider how it avoids mythologizing McClane - or how it embraces the myth. He also stresses the importance of setting in these films, and how they are presented with awe and majesty, as spectacle unto themselves, in the same way that the hard-body's muscles are filmed.

It also occured to me while reading that perhaps the reason why Die Hard With a Vengeance and Live Free or Die Hard deemphasize the enclosed spaces which so define the first two films is precisely due to the proliferation of Die Hard clones in the 1990s - indeed, Lichtenfeld notes that a proposed Die Hard 3 was initially cancelled due to similarity to Under Siege. Although parts of the latter Die Hard films feature action in confined areas, they are incidental to the larger structure, rather than defining. Especially when dealing with such iconic characters, it pays to examine competing and derivative films, which can have a major effect on the development of a franchise.

One criticism I have of this chapter is that as Lichtenfeld moves into the Bruckheimer/Bay era of action films, he becomes suddenly judgmental - after five chapters of discussing a wide variety of terrible films (particularly those featuring Steven Segal and Chuck Norris), Lichtenfeld spends too much time singling out The Rock and Con Air as "overedited," "oversaturated" and so on - at the expense of more interesting analysis of the somewhat unconventional Nicholas Cage heroes of each film. Certainly, the man is entitled to an opinion, and qualitative commentary has a place in academic work, but it shouldn't become the focus. That part of the chapter feels more like a disgruntled review than anything else.