There are five official Die Hard movies. Given star Bruce Willis’ retirement from acting, it’s likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future. (Don’t rule out The Wholly Redundant Adventures of Young John McClane coming to theaters in summer 2035.)
Regardless, the series will live on indefinitely, not just through the endlessly beloved, rewatchable, and Christmas-ready original or Die Hard with a Vengeance also being really fun, but through the now-timeless art of the Die Hard ripoff. To wit: this week’s Bride Hard hits theaters with a premise that seems reverse-engineered from its punny title, and as silly as it is, the movie functions as a variation on the formula. The original film, as you probably know, is about a humble (if stubborn and mouthy) New York cop visiting his estranged wife in Los Angeles, only to get caught in a cat-and-mouse game when terrorists take her and her co-workers hostage at their office building. McClane slips away undetected and fights a sort of guerilla operation throughout the skyscraper, ultimately saving the day. So for a Die Hard knockoff, you need a likable rogue (like, say, Rebel Wilson as a secret agent), preferably one who no one particularly suspects of being a major threat to the bad guys (Wilson’s friends don’t know she’s a spy), forced to defuse some kind of hostage/ransom/terrorist situation at a specific and limited location (like a best friend’s wedding).
Bride Hard is not the best execution of the Die Hard knockoff, perhaps unsurprisingly; it’s too spoofy to work as an action movie and too interested in mounting low-rent spectacle to work as a scrappy comic version. About the best you can say is that it’s more of a Die Hard riff than the similarly pun-based comedy title Spy Hard. Nevertheless, the formula persists; this year’s chintzy Cleaner, starring Daisy Ridley, has the dubious distinction of attempting to be, uh, “Die Hard in a skyscraper,“ is currently on Max.
For now, though, the golden age of the Die Hard knockoff remains the 1990s, when sometimes one of them would actually surpass the official follow-ups. With that in mind, here is our five-movie crash course in how sometimes a ripoff is better than a remake or a sequel.
5. Passenger 57 (1992, Die Hard on a passenger plane)
Passenger 57 can lay claim to the greatest efficiency of the Die Hard knockoffs, coming in at a lean and much-appreciated 84 minutes, with credits. It might seem like the basic premise of John Cutter (Wesley Snipes), an airline security expert who nonetheless doesn’t love flying, caught in the middle of a terrorist hijacking cheats on its Die Hard-ness by, among other things, landing the plane halfway through the movie. (For a few minutes, it seems like it’s veering into a bonus Die Hard at a Carnival.) And there are definitely other elements in the mix here: Snipes at times seems to be doing his version of Bond (at one point he introduces himself as “Cutter… John Cutter.”), and despite his terrorist CV, lead baddie Charles Rane (Bruce Payne) comes across more like a post-Silence of the Lambs twisted-serial-killer mastermind. But that stuff, plus an infectiously dated score, all makes Passenger 57 distinctive, fun, and even a touch unpredictable for a formula action picture. The guiding force in the movie’s charm and oddities alike is Snipes, on the heels of his buddy-picture triumph White Men Can’t Jump earlier the same year, delivering an action-star-making performance that signals how the actors in these movies are often vastly more important than the new location.
Passenger 57 is available to rent on VOD platforms.
4. Sudden Death (1995, Die Hard in a hockey arena)
Then again, sometimes a particularly novel location does help. Sudden Death follows the Die Hard formula pretty closely – humbled and divorced guy finds out about a hostage-taking, ransom-demanding situation in a large facility and goes on a one-man mission to protect his imperiled family – but the shift from office building to hockey arena makes space for a lot of wild flourishes. Perhaps the most memorable is Jean-Claude Van Damme tussling with a henchman disguised as a Pittsburgh Penguins mascot, in a fight that is vastly more brutal than it sounds from that description. But there’s also a sequence, praise be, where Van Damme must disguise himself as a hockey player and get on the ice himself to elude the bad guys. Apart from the movie’s silliest moments, which are glorious and satisfying, there’s a surprising amount of nasty, almost slasher-style killing and terrific stunts from the pre-CG era, guided by Van Damme whisperer Peter Hyams, who also made Timecop with the Muscles from Brussels. Sudden Death wasn’t a huge hit in its day, when it came out the same year as the third actual Die Hard, but it’s held up quite well over the past 30 years.
Sudden Death is available to rent on VOD platforms.
3. Under Siege (1992, Die Hard on a battleship)
Loathe as we might be to hand it to Steven Seagal, whose decade-ish reign as king of the ‘90s second-tier action stars seems even more distant now than fellow B-lister Van Damme, everything really came together for his most enduring star vehicle. Director Andrew Davis, who previously worked on the Chuck Norris thriller Code of Silence and the Seagal vehicle Above the Law, was on the come-up; the next year he reached a career peak directing The Fugitive – which includes an Oscar-winning performance from Tommy Lee Jones, fresh off his performance as the villain in Under Siege. Here, Jones plays a maniac who takes over a battleship with a plan to sell off its missiles (and likely start World War III, as one does); Seagal is Casey Ryback, a Naval officer finishing out his time as a ship cook who is therefore well-positioned to thwart the plan. Though of course he’s highly trained in anti-terrorism moves, Ryback the demoted cook is a good part for Seagal, adding a dash of genuine humility to the self-importance that would only get worse after he had a big hit under his belt. He’s not as charismatic as Snipes, but Jones makes for one of the best post-Gruber Die Hard-ish villains, and Davis is well into his groove staging suspenseful action. It’s a measure of how encompassing the Die Hard-style action movie has been that multiple performers, including Seagal, did their best work imitating someone else’s breakout star moment.
Under Siege is available to rent on VOD platforms.
2. Con Air (1997, Die Hard on a prison transport plane)
“Die Hard on a plane” is almost a whole other subgenre of its own; Air Force One may be the most popular, having grossed more than any actual Die Hard movie in its original release. But true connoisseurs will prefer the funnier, less earnest, but still more kick-ass Con Air, which came out earlier the same summer. Cameron Poe (Nicolas Cage) is the criminal equivalent of the humbled lone-wolf cop; he’s a good guy who accidentally killed a man in a fight defending his pregnant wife. Poe’s flight home after his parole happens to coincide with a multi-psycho plot to take over the transport plane and fly it to freedom, sweet freedom! As far as maneuvering through a secret plot to save the day, Con Air isn’t as logistically compelling as our #1 pick, but it shines by defying the charismatic-leader-and-a-bunch-of-faceless-henchmen model. Every de facto henchman here has a face, because they’re played by an all-star ensemble of great character actors and also Dave Chappelle. So yes, there’s John Maklovich as the head creep, but the movie also treats us to Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi, Danny Trejo, Chappelle, and M.C. Gainey. On top of that, John Cusack playing Poe’s man on the ground is also a major cut above – and, of course, Cage himself as Poe is giving a master class in how to border on spoofing the material without actually taking it over the line into smug condescension. He’s somehow playing this part with both utter conviction and a sly wink.
Con Air is available to stream on Hulu and AMC Plus.
1. Speed (1994, Die Hard on a city bus)
Perhaps the strangest aspect of the Die Hard imitation phenomenon is that in trying to imitate the logistical thrills of the original film, multiple movies actually reproduced something that should have been much trickier: the minting of an action star. We can take it for granted now that Keanu Reeves is a generational talent in that field, having done four movies apiece in the John Wick and Matrix series. But in 1994, Reeves was more heartthrob than badass, known for his accent struggles as much as his Point Break action. Jan de Bont’s Speed actually breaks from a key element of the Die Hard formula; cop Jack Traven (Reeves) isn’t necessarily an underdog and he certainly isn’t working on his own, spending so much of the movie next to Annie (Sandra Bullock), the passenger who takes the wheel when the driver of a bomb-laden bus gets shot in a commotion. (Really, Annie fits the Die Hard hero model more than Jack does.) But Reeves’ streamlined, no-nonsense velocity here matches the speed of the vehicle, which has been rigged by yet another blackmailing madman (Dennis Hopper) to blow up if it dips below fifty miles per hour. Shrinking a skyscraper down to a city bus only seems to activate the filmmakers’ invention; in terms of off-the-cuff action-movie problem-solving, Speed is arguably cleverer than Die Hard, if inevitably less iconic. Though some future Die Hard knockoffs doubtless had the success Speed in mind too, there’s a reason you don’t hear many movies described as Speed on anything. It’s just not that easy to pull off.
Speed is available to stream on Max.
