Awesome / Die Hard

Works in this franchise with their own pages:

• Die Hard 2
• Die Hard with a Vengeance
• Live Free or Die Hard
• A Good Day to Die Hard

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First film:

• "Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!" In the first, it is a CMoA; in the third, it follows a CMoA - John McClane taking down Simon Gruber and his partner in a buzzard by shooting an electric cable; in the second and fourth, it precedes a CMoA - McClane blowing up a plane in mid-air with a lighter, and while being held hostage by the villain, killing the baddie by shooting his own shoulder.
• Ironically, Hans Gruber's defeat was a CMOA for him. After getting shot by McClane and falling out the window, he almost pulls down Holly with him and makes one last effort to shoot McClane (which he does quite calmly considering the situation he is in). Then he falls in slow motion all dramatic-like. He may have lost, but damn if he wasn't badass about it!
  • Gruber's face when he falls to his death is genuine. The crew member(s) told Alan Rickman they were going to let go of his arm after counting to three. However, come the filming of the actual scene, the crewmen/stuntmen let go of Rickman's arm upon reaching 'two', and thus, his shocked/terrified face as he falls is completely real. After this shot was done, though, Rickman was REALLY pissed off.
• "Alas, your Mr. Takagi did not see it that way, so he won't be joining us for the rest of his life." He says it very coolly, while eating a sandwich. Alan Rickman just thought it was the kind of thing Hans would do.
  • John gets one during this scene too as while Hans is delivering his Breaking Speech to the hostages, the elevator pings and opens. Fritz turns to see who it is only to get one hell of an Oh, Crap! face as he sees it's Tony's dead body, causing a panic among the hostages when they see it too. Hans' reaction is barely contained fury as he realizes the situation is no longer under control and there's an unplanned variable running around the plaza unchecked with Tony's MP5.
    Hans: (voice dripping with anger) Now I have a machine gun. Ho. ho. ho.
• Holly negotiating with Hans:
  Hans: What idiot put you in charge?
  Holly: You did. [Hans looks up in surprise] When you murdered my boss. Now everybody's looking to me. Personally, I'd pass on the job. I don't enjoy being this close to you.
  • Holly's CMOA is negotiating with Hans at that level, and Hans's CMOA is that he simply accepts being called an idiot, because she was right!
    • Furthermore, Holly is the one who is able to get a rise out of Gruber most often throughout the film, like calling him a mere "thief". She knows the buttons to push on Gruber and hits them when they can do the most good in the hopes that he might get angry enough to make a mistake John can exploit.
• Argyle cutting off Theo with the limo and knocking him out.
• John using the radio he took off one of the dead members of Hans's crew to casually call up the mastermind and casually reveal that he knows their names to put Hans' crew on edge.
  McClane: I figured since I've waxed Tony and Marco and his friend here, I figured you and Karl and Franco might be lonely so I wanted to give you a call.
• The fight between McClane and Karl. Karl is bigger, stronger, and knows martial arts, but McClane keeps up with him through gumption and ingenuity. Not to mention all the trash talk McClane shouts.
  McClane: You shoulda head your brother squeal WHEN I BROKE HIS FUCKIN' NECK!!
  McClane: Motherfucker, I'll KILL you!
  McClane: I'm gonna kill ya, I'm gonna cook ya, and I'm gonna fuckin' EAT ya!!
• When McClane ties a firehose around his waist and leaps off the roof of the Nakatomi Plaza. In slow motion. Just as the FBI is about to shoot him from a helicopter as the roof explodes behind him. It's one of the best shots in the movie.
• Another Throw It In! in the form of Hans successfully faking an American accent when he first faces McClane. Which serves as a moment of funny as well, because when he first sees him his Oh, Crap! face was genuine before he used it to further fool John into thinking he was an escaped hostage.
  • Later in the same scene, when Hans stops pretending to be an escaped hostage and points his gun at McClane, John is surprisingly relaxed about the gun in his face, even taunting Hans a bit. Then we get this:
    [Hans pulls the trigger, the gun clicks without firing]
    McClane: Oops.
    [Hans pulls the trigger a few more times, the gun still doesn't fire]
    McClane: [mockingly] No bullets. You think I'm fucking stupid, Hans?
    [Elevator arrives on the floor containing several of Hans's accomplices]
    Hans: You were saying?
• Pretty much Alan Rickman's whole performance. Prior to this film, he had purely been a stage actor and was very nervous about whether he could transfer that to working with cameras. And he completely knocked it out of the park, even while dealing with a character who'd pretty much been a non-entity in the original novel.
  • In addition, despite it being his first ever film, he played Wag the Director and pretty much made Hans the character he is. Highly cultured, well-dressed, and polite? Yeah, that was Rickman. Initially, he was going to be a more generic bad guy. Instead, in his first feature film, he created one of the most iconic villains ever.
  • You can possibly see it in his character's opening speech. In that scene, while his minions are running around waving their weapons, Hans is standing casually with a notebook in his hands. That book was holding a copy of his lines for his scene in case he flubbed them in his nervousness. As you see Rickman speak with the masterful talent the world now knows he had, Rickman concludes it with him closing his book: that is the sight of an actor realizing that he can relax since he's got this role down cold and is about to run with it.
• Despite them being the villains, it's rather awesome when the villains finally break into the vault, complete with Michael Kamen's soaring rendition of "Ode to Joy". The scene very much feels like a bunch of kids opening their presents on Christmas Day.
  • Gruber's plan is a CMOA all by itself, really. He avoids the usual pitfalls of the Big Bad, has backup plans for when the police and FBI arrive (including thorough knowledge of FBI HRT protocols and bringing along anti-tank weaponry to deal with SWAT vehicles), and his getaway plan guaranteed him and his crew would be long gone before anyone realized it had all been about the bonds, not any kind of political statement. The only reason he didn't get away with everything, was John McClane.
  • Ruthless though it is, the villains utterly repulsing the attempted SWAT assault is a thing of tactical beauty. Capped off by Theo's gleefully sadistic "Oh my god, the quarterback is toast!" when their armored car is blown up with an anti-tank missile.
• To stop the continuous missile fire against the SWAT AFV, McClane ties a CRT computer monitor ^note Cathode ray tubes retain a high-voltage charge powerful enough to potentially electrocute a person would be enough to trigger the detonators. and a brick of C4 to a chair, drops it down the elevator shaft, to the bottom floor where the terrorists are holding their weapons. The huge explosion bags the firing terrorists and can be felt by the hostages and Hans. McClane looks down to see the blazing fire sprouting up. He screams "OH SHIIIT!" and jumps out of the way just as the explosion reaches his floor.
  McClane: Geronimo motherfucker!
• McClane's final confrontation with Hans. At this point, the good cop is horribly injured, bleeding all over, and is near the end of his sanity after everything he has gone through. The situation is not good for McClane as he is outnumbered, Hans has his wife hostage and he only has two bullets left. As McClane laughs at his current predicament, with Hans and Eddie joining him, the camera slowly pans over to McClane's back, revealing that he had taped his pistol to his back. With his hands over his head, McClane quickly draws his pistol and shoots both Hans and Eddie with his last bullets.
  McClane: Happy trails, Hans.
• And then there is Sgt. Al Powell... besides a magnificent aversion of Police Are Useless, he also gets one hell of a Big Damn Hero moment by being the one to finally take down Karl for good. In a crowd full of cops, Powell is the only one to stand his ground, fire true, and finish him off with a final shot to the heart.
  • This, after he had a profound heart-to-heart with John about why he doesn't want to ever unholster his weapon again by the way too. He overcame that fear when it mattered the most.
• After wildly increasing the danger she was in with his thoughtless prestige-chasing reporting style, Dick Thornberg's request for an interview is infuriating to see, especially since he's hounding a woman who is rightfully rattled after being a hostage for hours and Karl's final attempt to kill her husband. Understandably, Holly slugs him across the face for even asking. Not a slap like most movies would have done, a closed fist hook. Even better, his own news crew laughs at him getting what he deserves, and the sequel confirms she took a couple of his teeth out.

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