Die Hard 2 – Lie Harder by Omission
Die Hard 2 is the movie I watch at Christmas. Followed by Die Hard for the extra special holiday spirit as we watch Hans Gruber pinwheel to the ground.
First, let me say — Die Hard 2 (aka Die Harder) is my favorite of all the Die Hard’s… and full disclosure: I only consider it a trilogy. Those last 2 were a mistake I’d like to forget about.
At the movie start, John gets his mother-in-law’s car towed away and a ticket for parking in the tow-away zone at the airport. I never noticed this inconsistency before, but as I was rewatching it, it suddenly occurred to me that — but I’ll come back to that.
There are some movies that I enjoy watching again. One of those movies is Die Hard 2, aka Die Harder. I’ve lost count of how many times I have seen it. I don’t know if I prefer this one because of the snow, or the blatant repeat of the Christmas theme from the first movie, but I know I like that it takes place in an airport.
So I was watching it again this past Christmas (because who has time for boring old holiday movies) and something stood out that I had never noticed before.
*Warning: there will be spoilers. I’m going to mention parts of the movie that if you plan to see it and don’t like plot points revealed in advance, you may want to stop reading now.
If you don’t have any such qualms, by all means, plunge ahead…*
At the end of the movie when McClane is on the golf cart, the police captain turns to him, tears up the ticket which we know he got at the beginning of the movie, and says, “Hey McClane…(tears up ticket) It’s Christmas!”
What suddenly occurred to me was, hey that’s great, but who is going to pay to get his MIL’s car from the impound lot?
See, at the beginning of the movie, in addition to getting that ticket, and setting up the gag that this airport cop is the Captain’s brother and a real douche, his MIL’s car, which McClane drove to the airport to pick up Holly, totally got towed away. So, through the whole movie, we know that at the end, once Holly is off that plane, he’s not going to have a car to take her home with.
Movies always finish at the end of the action, but not at the end of the story.
I was talking this out with my friend the other day, and I surmised that having this shitty surprise in the aftermath of the terrorist plot created the divide that led to their misunderstanding which is part of the subplot of Die Hard 3.
My friend said that they finish these movies with these plot holes to set the foundation for future sequels.
I think what I would have liked to have seen more was what happened when Marvin dropped John and Holly off somewhere and they stumbled off into the cold to figure out what to do about her luggage.
At what point does John mention that he, like an idiot, managed to get the car towed because he was parked in front of the airport in a no-standing zone?
At the airport, they were always towing cars, and this was way pre-9/11 days. I mean if it wasn’t a gun, they really weren’t batting an eye at you unless you looked suspicious or were not white (I reference Passenger 57 — although Wesley could have been getting the extra hands-on treatment because he was supposed to be the sexy air marshall and no woman was supposed to resist him… but I digress).
Long story short, they never really say what happens to the car that is in the tow yard. On Christmas Eve no less! You know they’re keeping holiday hours. I expect they will be closed to the public on Christmas too?
So what then? The earliest they can even think of getting the car is the day after Christmas. So they spend the holiday low-key pretending they don’t have a car that got towed, that the in-laws aren’t pissed at McClane for being a loser and parking in a tow zone and that once again, he proves to them that Holly would have been better off without him.
I imagine they rehash all the old arguments. He complains some more about giving up his life in New York to move to LA and sure enough, their marriage is once again on the fritz.
In Die Hard 3, we are not sure how much time has passed between 2 and 3, but enough that when Zeus asks him what caused the rift, it’s a phone call. So maybe this phone call was from after he walked away and moved back to NY thinking she would come crawling back to him?
What they don’t talk about is that Holly secretly resents her husband’s high-handed attitude that gets him drawn into these harrowing situations.
The same attitude makes him think he knows what is best for their relationship.
The same attitude that makes him a shitty communicator and perpetually estranged from his high-achieving wife.
I still love the movie. And if you’ve seen the documentary on Netflix, then you get the appeal.
Such is life. Ho, Ho, Ho.
