When Die Hard became one of the biggest hits of 1988, Hollywood immediately started chasing the formula. Suddenly, every studio wanted its own version of Bruce Willis battling terrorists in a single confined location. The result was an entire wave of action thrillers built around the unofficial “Die Hard on a…” concept, whether that meant a battleship, a bus, an airplane, a hockey arena, or even Alcatraz.
Some became classics. Others have been largely forgotten. Together, they represent one of the defining trends in 1990s action cinema.
Pitched as “Die Hard at a School”, this one starred Sean Astin and Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Wil Wheaton as delinquent students at a boarding school, who find their campus taken over by a Colombian drug lord (Andrew Divoff). Despite the goofy premise, this one goes surprisingly hard, with an R-rating and a couple of unexpected deaths. Astin is terrific as the hero opposite a very strong Louis Gossett Jr. as the tough but stern principal who (natch) turns into a badass in the finale.
This one was “Die Hard on a boat” and starred Steven Seagal as Casey Ryback, a Navy cook whose battleship is taken over by Tommy Lee Jones—in one of the best villain roles of the decade. Directed by Andrew Davis, this elevated Seagal—briefly—to the top echelon of A-list action heroes, and set both Davis and Jones up for The Fugitive, which was an even bigger hit. Under Siege got a sequel which was basically “Die Hard on a train” but it suffered from the absence of Jones and Davis.
“Die Hard on a plane”: At the time, Wesley Snipes was rising fast as a star, having impressed audiences in Major League, although it was his turn as the charismatic villain, Nino Brown, in New Jack City that made him a star to watch. Fresh off playing a bad guy, Warner Bros. decided to test him out as a hero in Passenger 57, in which he plays an anti-terrorist consultant trapped on a plane with terrorist hijackers. The film was a huge success and overnight established Snipes as one of the biggest action stars of the decade. Plus, the gag where everyone mistakes him for Arsenio Hall is dated—but gold.
Easily the biggest of the Die Hard clones, this one was “Die Hard on a bus”, but with a brilliant twist—that if the bus they are trapped on goes slower than 50 mph, it will explode. The formula was so good that it actually got poached in both a disastrous sequel (Speed 2: Cruise Control) and the now-forgotten Chill Factor, which was basically Speed in an ice cream truck. Keanu Reeves is a great hero in this, with Dennis Hopper the charismatic villain, but perhaps its biggest legacy is that it launched Sandra Bullock’s career.
This one was basically “Die Hard at a hockey arena,” with Jean-Claude Van Damme playing a fire marshal trying to save an arena full of people—during the Stanley Cup playoffs, to boot—when terrorists hijack the VIP suite, which happens to contain the Vice President of the United States and JCVD’s daughter. This has some killer action, including a memorable scrap with the team mascot and JCVD blocking a goal when he poses as a goalie.
Another inspired twist on the Die Hard formula, The Rock took the premise to Alcatraz, with a novel twist—instead of one hero there were two—in this case Sean Connery doing a riff on James Bond, and Nicolas Cage in his first—but not last—action hero performance. Plus, you had Ed Harris as perhaps the most sympathetic villain of the decade, and a classic score.
Another Die Hard on a plane movie, but this one had a twist—the plane was loaded with convicts! While The Rock was the movie that first established him as an action hero, in Con Air Cage was able to carry the formula all by himself, and the plane is loaded with amazing character actors playing bad guys, including John Malkovich, Ving Rhames and Steve Buscemi.
Yet another Die Hard on a Plane movie, but the twist is that the plane is Air Force One, and the lone hero is the president of the United States, played by Harrison Ford in one of his most kick-ass roles. Plus, Gary Oldman is a classic bad guy, and the movie has the best one-liner since “yippie kai yay motherfucker”—“get off my plane” (although Passenger 57’s “always bet on black” comes close).
Not to be confused with the classic 1967 Lee Marvin film, this was basically Die Hard set in an abandoned mall. This was actually a favorite setting of the DTV era, which was full of Die Hard clones. The unique thing about this one is that it stars Mickey Rourke, who was impossibly jacked, as an ex-cop who infiltrates the mall to save the hostages, with the twist being that the main bad guy is his estranged brother. There are some fun sequences in this, including a great fight between Rourke and Danny Trejo, but it’s marred by obvious doubling for Rourke during the martial arts sequences, and the fact that he clearly didn’t do all his own looping, with a portion of the film seemingly voiced by a Rourke impersonator. Another solid “Die Hard in a mall” movie is Security, starring Antonio Banderas with Ben Kingsley as the bad guy.
Easily the most obscure movie on this list, this was actually a big-budget WB release that was meant to establish rising stars Skeet Ulrich and Cuba Gooding Jr as a new buddy-action movie pairing. What killed it is the lame premise and title, where they have to keep a chemical weapon frozen in an ice cream truck, and if it drops below 50 degrees, it will detonate – a ludicrous Speed rip-off. So basically this was Die Hard meets Speed in an Ice Cream truck. It was a megaflop and barely got released.
Towards the end of the decade, the formula had been stretched to its breaking point, to the extent that even when they made a third Die Hard movie—Die Hard With a Vengeance—they decided to expand the concept and make it a city-wide action flick.
Action movies tend to follow trends, and the next trend was established by The Matrix in 1999, followed by The Bourne Identity in 2002, with those movies inspiring the next generation of clones, until later in the decade when superhero movies became the thing everyone wanted to copy. That said, perhaps the “Die Hard on a…” formula is primed for a comeback?
Let us know in the comments below!