Five things needed to fix Die Hard

5) Give us respectable bad guys

The next Die Hard, or should I say the second DHINO, is only weeks away and we know nothing about the villain/s. That is not a good sign. All we know is that it's going to be set in Russia. The last villain was shit. Timothy Olyphant was about as menacing as a cup of cold coffee. Poor casting. But worse than that, poor writing. Destroying a Country? The fuck outta here! But worse than that, setting out to destroy a Country with the age old 'He's doing it for the moneehy!' swerve. Didn't see that coming. Die Hard doesn't need a supervillain. It needs a bad guy, a few of them. It needs a bad guy with sufficient motivation and an actor that can relay a certain amount of rage and danger. I mean it's not that hard, is it?


4) Keep it simple

 Die Hard got a lot of praise back in the 80's for being a relatively realistic movie, it was confined to a building and the protagonist was an everyman. With this new direction the profiteers are taking Die Hard on - unfortunately with the complicity of Bruce Willis - the protagonist is no longer a hero, but a superhero. John Moore, the director of Die Hard 5, has gone on record saying the movie will be "vast, vast", stretching from California to Moscow. What? Since when was Die Hard about intercontinental espionage, you rotund bastard? Why would a cop from New York being using RPG's on the streets of Moscow? I don't give a fuck how they 'explain' it, it's bullshit. I don't have the answer on how to constrain John McLane, but I'm not a writer. I just know his situation has to be maligned and urgent.  I'd rather see a believable heist on a normal street - or something - rather than Operation Barbarossa V2.0.  Something that is small yet competent is better than something that aims for the moon and falls on its ass.


3) Acknowledge the fact that it's Die Hard

The fuckwits who have taken over this series have alienated fans. Big time. They have removed the idioms, the music, the cast and theme of the original trilogy. You know why Rambo 4 was a success and Die Hard 4 wasn't? Because Stallone is in touch with fans. Stallone knew people weren't out for Shakespeare or 15 CGI blocks of a city exploding, he knew that fans of a retro update wanted - funnily enough - retro shit. Die Hard needs it's old DNA back - starting with John McLane. I don't know who that dick was in DHINO, but it wasn't the wisecracking New Yorker from 'That thing in L.A.'.  It was more the Bruce Willis from The Sixth Sense than the one from Die Hard.  On top of that, get the old score back. The music in DHINO was fucking stinking generic crap. Get McLane's wife back. Get Al Powell back. I don't want to see McLane's secret agent son. I'd rather see Argyle the limo driver.


2) Rated-R

 It has to be Rated-R. It has to be. Die Hard is a man's movie. It's not a kids movie. It's not a movie for the family. It's a man's movie. Apparently it's fine to practically change the genre of a movie if it's an action movie to appease brats and soccer moms. Now can you imagine if they re-wrote, say, Sex and the City and forcibly included violent shoot-outs? After all, some men might want to watch! Or Harry Potter going around stabbing people? It's not okay for them but it's okay for us? Fuck you!  Can you imagine the Transformers starting to scream the word "FUCK"?  Well, that's how offensive it is to remove FUCKER from mother to us.  John McLane is a violent individual. And he's foul-mouthed, sarcastic and trigger happy. And his opponents are even worse. Is swearing or violence that big a deal? Yes! I want my fucking swearing and I want my fucking bloodsquibs.


1) Get a fucking director

Probably the most important thing is the director.A good director will know all of this already. Ideally, the man for the job is John McTiernan. But Big John is on some... uh, vacation time and is a little busy. While he is the ideal candidate, he isn't necessary. Die Hard 2 proved this. Die Hard 2 is a worthy Die Hard movie by the way, anyone who says otherwise is a fucking idiot whose opinion is influenced by the direction of the fucking wind. We got the right man with Renny Harlin, and we can get the right man again. I don't just mean a good action director either. John Moore, director of Die Hard 5, is actually competent with visual action. But he's a studio director, which makes his skills pointless. He'll say yes to whatever the fuck they demand. Someone with balls is needed, someone who respects the property he's dealing with and is willing to walk. Unfortunately men like that are increasingly being weeded out. Maybe we can hope that one day, the King will return and put things right. I mean Walter Hill came out of retirement. George Miller is doing his first Mad Max in 30 years. Stallone dug Rambo out of the grave. Save us, John!