Last week, we looked at one of the greatest action movies ever made, a little indie flick called “Die Hard,” and discussed the numerous solid screenwriting choices that made it great. Today, we’re doing…well…the opposite. We’re discussing Die Hard 2, one of the worst (at least as far as the 90s were concerned) action movies out there, and the screenwriting choices that made it so bad. So here are ten ingredients you should never add to your own scripts, as they’ll most certainly taint the quality of the dish.

NO CONFLICT FOR JOHN MCCLANE
One of the most shocking choices in Die Hard 2 is that the main character has no unresolved personal conflict in the story. There’s no conflict John McClane has to emotionally resolve, either within himself or outside of himself. Remember all that emotion you felt in the first film? How you so badly wanted McClane to save his wife? That was born out of the unresolved conflict in their marriage. We wanted to see them reconcile. Here, there’s no unresolved conflict with McClane whatsoever, making this a purely surface-level endeavor. And boy does it feel that way. There isn’t an ounce of emotion in Die Hard 2’s entire running time. Take a look at how Star Wars tackled this. Han Solo’s conflict in the first movie was his selfishness (an inner conflict). He always chose himself above others. That conflict was resolved when he came back and saved Luke. In the second film, Han needed something new to battle. So the writers shifted the conflict over to Han’s unresolved relationship with Leia. Are they or aren’t they going to get together? As a result, Han’s character was just as compelling. Needless to say, the reason Han was so forgettable in Return Of The Jedi was because there was no unresolved conflict left. Ditto for Die Hard 2.

NO MORE UNDERDOG
Staying with McClane’s character, remember one of the main things that made him so compelling in the first film? He was the underdog. As I always say on this blog, EVERYBODY LOVES AN UNDERDOG. In Die Hard 2, McClane is a celebrity. He’s actually the opposite of an underdog. As a result, we’re not rooting for him nearly as much. We actually expect him to prevail, which is boring.

TOO MUCH PLOT
Part of the beauty of Die Hard is its simplicity. We understand the rules. We understand the players. Everything is clearly laid out. In contrast, Die Hard 2 goes plot-fucking-crazy with its story. There are way too many factions to keep track of (McClane, Airport security, Tower Control, the bad guys, the foreign military leader, the army, Dweeblezorp the Basement Guy) and way too many motivations within each of those factions to keep track of. Not only does this require a full 40 minutes of screenplay time to set up, but it prevents us from getting to know the key characters better so we can care about them. This is one of the principal fallouts of overplotting, is that it takes time away from character development. If we don’t develop our characters, nobody’s going to care about them. That little problem I had with McClane not having any unresolved conflict? I wonder if that’s because they didn’t think they had enough “time.” Of course, had they not overplotted their movie, they would’ve had plenty of time to explore the character.

DE-CONTAINING THE CONTAINER
One of the great things about contained thrillers is that your character is stuck. Him being stuck is a key piece that makes the drama work because it generates an exciting dramatic question: Will he make it out? In Die Hard 2, that element has been discarded and our main character has free reign to go anywhere he wants. Obviously, not every action movie has to be contained, but when we realize McClane can go anywhere (and he does go anywhere – at one point he’s driving around on a snowmobile for God’s sakes) it feels like a cheat and it confuses us. I think if they would’ve set this up as an uncontained film, we may have been more accepting of the decision. But the movie sneakily tries to play both sides of the fence, acting as if it’s a contained thriller, yet allowing characters to go wherever they want. So when you’re writing your own movie, make sure this is clear.

MOVIE LOGIC
While Die Hard 2 tries desperately to make its far-flung terrorist plot believable, the reality is, it doesn’t make sense. Everything hinges on you believing that these planes will just continue to circle until they run out of fuel, made somewhat plausible by the fact that the fake controllers keep telling them they’ll be able to land soon. But the truth is, this isn’t realistic. There are dozens of airports within the Dulles area that the planes can land on with less than 20 minutes of fuel. And if a plane is nearing that critical level of low fuel, they’re going to find another runway. But even if you say, “Carson, who cares about that shit? It’s a fun action movie. Just go with it.” The problem with this extremely complicated plot is that the screenplay has to spend pages upon pages explaining and filling in all these logic holes so that you believe it. Had the plot been simpler and more believable, that time could’ve been spent on…oh I don’t know…character development!

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF TIME
When movie-goers come out of a movie reciting that old adage, “I could write something better than that,” they’ve usually just walked out of a Hollywood sequel. The reason sequels tend to be bad is because the writing period is rushed. It’s hard to write a fully fleshed out compelling story with original twists and turns in a matter of months. The Matrix had over 40 drafts. The Sixth Sense was in the mid-twenties. Look at what happened to those same screenwriters when they had half that time. Or – shudder – a fourth of that time (Ahem, Lady In The Water). The movies were more confusing, less interesting, and less original. That’s not coincidence. So take advantage of that one commodity you have that the big timers don’t – time – to craft the richest, most detailed, most cleverly plotted, most unique screenplay possible.

THE VILLAIN IS BORING AS HELL
From the very first moment the villain in Die Hard 2 appears on screen, I knew the movie was screwed. Naked doing tai-chi in a hotel room?? Give me a break. These gimmicky introductions are usually an attempt to mask a lame thinly constructed villain. The only exception is if their actions teach us something about their character. This moment doesn’t teach us anything. It’s just a cheap setup for him using karate against McClane later on the plane’s wing. Readers see through gimmicks. They know when you’re compensating for a weakness. Do the extra homework and figure out who your villain is (what he wants, what he fears, what his weaknesses are, what pushed him to this point) and push yourself until each one of those choices is unique – not standard bad guy staples. You do that and you won’t need your villain doing naked thai-chi at the beginning of your movie.

SO HOW DO YOU MAKE US HATE YOUR VILLAIN?
There’s usually a moment in every action film where the villain will do something to make you hate him, to ensure that you’ll want to see him go down. Let’s compare that moment in the two Die Hards. In the first, Hans coldly kills Takagi, a man we’ve spent a little time with and have begun to like. As a result, his murder hits us on a personal level. Contrast that with Die Hard 2, where the villain (I still don’t remember Mr. Boring’s name) kills an entire plane full of passengers. Now to the inexperienced writer, this might seem like the better choice. More people dead = bad guy badder. But they would be wrong. Cause we didn’t know a single passenger on that plane. They were faceless nobodies and meant nothing to us. The much more personal killing of a single man hit us harder because we cared. Remember that for you next “bad guy moment.”

CLEARLY LAID OUT ACTION SCENES
Every action scene should be a mini-story. There should be a setup, some conflict, and a resolution. Key here is the setup. You want the reader to understand the geography, the motivations, what’s at stake, and each character’s goal. Die Hard handles this masterfully, in part because its locations are always contained and therefore easy to understand. When McClane is up on the roof with all the hostages and realizes it’s about to blow up with an FBI helicopter sniper shooting at him because they thinks he’s a bad guy, it’s an exciting scene because we understand all the variables involved. We can participate in the problem as well as the solution (problem: people standing on huge bomb. Solution: get them out of there without getting killed yourself). In Die Hard 2, almost every time the good guys and bad guys meet, it’s an open area with no rules or clearly laid out motivations. The scenes quickly dissolve into a bunch of people shooting at each other as much as possible, which is why nearly all of the action scenes in Die Hard 2 are boring.

MAIN CHARACTER ISN’T NEEDED
Probably the single biggest failure of this screenplay is that John McClane isn’t needed. The great thing about the first Die Hard is that they had no choice but to deal with McClane. That was the beauty of it. They were stuck with this two-bit wild card New York cop who they felt was doing more harm than good. But they couldn’t stop him because he was inside the building. Here, they don’t need McClane at all, yet he still finds his way into every major meeting and conversation. It’s totally convoluted, feels false, and defies all believability. Granted he does have a strong goal (save his wife), but nobody on the ground has any reason or motivation to deal with him. So if you’re going to write your hero into a scenario, make sure it makes sense!

Obviously you can’t make the same movie twice. And I respect them for trying something different and bigger with Die Hard 2. But bigger means more complicated. And unless you have the time to figure out and hone those additional complex story threads, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. Or, more appropriately, running around a glass filled room without shoes on. Die Hard 2 is the perfect reminder that bigger and better rarely go hand in hand. And if you’re going to aim for the moon, make sure you’ve done enough research so that when launch day comes, you don’t blow yourself up.

Genre: Cop-Drama
Premise: An unorthodox Irish policeman with a confrontational personality is teamed up with an uptight FBI agent to investigate an international drug-smuggling ring.
About: The Guard was written and directed by John Michael McDonagh. This is his first directing effort. McDonagh’s one other credit is for writing 2003’s “Ned Kelly.” The Guard stars Don Cheadle and Brendan Gleeson and was purchased at Sundance this year by Sony Pictures Classics. John Michael is the brother of Martin McDonagh, whose film “In Bruges” became an instant cult classic. The two started their career together, with John writing and Martin directing a short film called “Six Shooter” that starred none other than…Brendan Gleeson.
Writer: John Michael McDonagh
Details: 109 pages – shooting draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

Since I put the word out that I was reviewing this script, I’ve been surprised at the nearly one dozen e-mails I’ve received celebrating it. The consensus seems to be that this is really good. Either this isn’t my choice of paint or I’m at the wrong house because while The Guard certainly has its moments, I felt that the story gets lost in too many places and, when it’s all said and done, has too bland of a plot.

Location: The west coast of Ireland.

Where we meet: Gerry Boyle

You wouldn’t call Boyle a corrupt cop. But if he spots a bag of coke in the pocket of a murdered civilian, he’ll stuff it in his own pocket and save it for a rainy day. That pretty much sums up Boyle. He has no problem mixing business with pleasure. Boyle is the heart and soul of The Guard, the blood pumping through its veins. When he’s doing his thing (which consists mainly of giving his unfiltered opinion of you) we’re dancing at the most exclusive party. When he’s not, the script is deader than a body once rigor mortis sets in.

Since Boyle’s way of doing his job is so, um, “specific,” he’s none too pleased to be set up with a new partner, city boy Aiden McBride. McBride’s greener than an Irish postcard and his dogged idealism bugs the hell out of Boyle. It sure is a buzzkill when your partner won’t let you get trashed before the day’s rounds begin.

But the partnership doesn’t last long. After looking into a possible serial killer murder, poor McBride is gunned down by some nasty Irish criminals during a routine traffic stop. Boyle’s later visited by McBride’s wife, who’s concerned that he never came home, and now instead of just having to worry about this murder, he’s got to worry about finding his annoying partner (who he doesn’t know is dead).

During this time, a drug task force blows into town led by FBI agent Wendell Everett, an African American. Apparently there’s a boat with half a billion dollars worth of cocaine on it that’s going to land somewhere along the coast of Ireland in the next few days. They need all local cops to keep a look out

This is pretty much the breaking point for Boyle. For a man who’d prefer to build a bed under his desk, a la George Costanza in Seinfeld, and sleep all day, this is turning out to be quite the heavy workload.

Eventually, Boyle and McBride’s wife start to hang out and he finds out that McBride was gay and the marriage was for a green card, which leaves the door open for a little romantic soiree. But McBride is devoid of emotion and uninterested in human contact, preferring to fuck hookers a la Charlie Sheen over, you know, opening up about his feelings n stuff.

It only gets more frustrating when Boyle’s forced to deal with Everett and his obsession with this coke boat. He takes it out on Everett with his racially charged observations, assuming that since Everett is black he grew up in the hood and probably danced with a gang or four.

But it turns out Everett grew up privileged, receiving an Ivy-League education and making his way up the ranks cause he’s damn good at his job. The two butt heads in their approach (Everett’s by the book, Boyle blows the book up) but need to work together to take down these drug dealers, a job that gets harder by the day considering how much corruption dominates the small Irish town.

The Guard, for me, didn’t do enough differently with the genre, had too un-compelling of a central case, and didn’t maximize the conflict between its leads enough. Combined with a host of other questionable choices, the script didn’t click for me.

It starts with McBride, Boyle’s initial partner. I have no idea why this character is in the script. He shows up for five minutes, dies, and then we’re supposed to be interested in the search for him even though a) we never knew him, b) he was a boring character c) our main character has no interest in finding out what happened to him, and d) it has absolutely nothing to do with the main plot.

The truth is, we didn’t need this character. He has nothing to do with the story. The first character to show up should’ve been Everett and we should’ve dived right into the drug-plot. We already had another death (the supposed serial killer murder) to look into in order to keep the plot complex. McBride, then, only serves to take up precious screenplay real estate.

I’m assuming his death was a device to introduce his wife into Boyle’s life, so we have a romantic interest. Not only were there other options for doing this, but the wife doesn’t really affect Boyle’s life anyway. Their interactions are short and devoid of conflict, so to go through all that trouble just to get this girl in the story who’s barely involved anyway and has little to offer in Boyle’s character transformation…I just didn’t see the point of it.

Next, I didn’t like the wishy-washy relationship with Everett. There’s nothing really forcing these two to interact with one another. They’re part of two different factions investigating two different things. This forces the script to have to come up with situations where the two would talk, but they never pop off the page because we know they’ll be free and clear of each other within ten minutes. These movies tend to work best when the people involved are forced to work together so in my opinion, the solution to this is simple. Drop McBride and have Everett come in and be Boyle’s partner from the get-go. It’s so obvious it’s painful.

The thing that really works for The Guard is the character of Boyle. He’s got two major things going for him as a fictional character. First, he says and does what’s on his mind. He has no filter. Those characters are always fun to watch. Also, he’s borderline corrupt. He abuses his power, and the irony of someone who’s supposed to be protecting us, taking advantage of us, is a compelling one and a dynamic we’re inherently drawn to (check out The Shield as an example).

My problem with these kinds of characters is that they work for awhile because they’re fun to watch, but at a certain point, they’re going to be called on to “save the day” and unless you’ve built a carefully nuanced transformation into the character over the course of the story, then them all of a sudden wanting to “do the right thing,” will feel artificial, and that’s exactly what happens here.

(Spoilers) Boyle finds out where the boat is landing and decides to go down by himself, a la Die Hard Bruce Willis, and single-handedly take out the entire group of bad guys.

Why? I don’t know.

He hasn’t given a shit for 100 pages. Why does he all of a sudden give a shit now? Yeah they killed his partner but he didn’t even know his partner. He has no reason to do this other than that it’s the climax of the movie and you need your hero to be involved in the climax somehow.

Needless to say, I wasn’t a fan of the script. I thought Boyle was a good character and that was about it. Motivations needed to be stronger. Needless plot points needed to be stripped. Relationships needed to be solidified. It’ll be interesting to see what Gleeson does with this character. No doubt he’ll have some fun and make this film watchable, but I can’t recommend the screenplay.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Use action to create a history between two people, not conversation. One of the problems I had with The Guard was that all of Boyle’s and Everett’s scenes together were them sitting around talking about their pasts. It was boring. Therefore, when they’re forced to team up in the end, you didn’t have any sense of history between the two. It was like I barely knew who these two were in relation to each other. So instead of trying to create history via dialogue, put your characters in situations that require action. Look at Heat. Remember the famous bank robbery scene where they’re out in the middle of downtown L.A. firing AK-47s at police officers? You really got the sense that those guys WENT THROUGH SOMETHING TOGETHER, so that later on, you felt the history between them. I didn’t see that here so the final pairing between Boyle and Everett lacked depth. It was almost like they were meeting for the first time. In short, SHOW don’t TELL. The Guard could’ve benefited from this.

Genre: Comedy/Drama
Premise: A once-prominent public school teacher tries to get three students into college in order to win over a hot new teacher.
About: Was on the ’06 Black List with six votes. While the script is still stuck in development, Eric Gravning, the writer, used it to get assignment work on the Halle Barry project, Class Act, about a Nevada school teacher who enlists the help of her sixth-grade students in her congressional campaign (based on the true story of Tierney Cahill). He also worked on the film adaptation of Tom and Jerry.
Writer: Eric Gravning
Details: 122 pages – draft that made the Black List (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

I’m an unabashed fan of Mr. Holland’s Opus. I know it’s super sentimental and uses industrial sized rope to tug at your heartstrings, but in my opinion, it’s the best “inspiring teacher” movie of all time. When Mr. Holland walks into that auditorium at the end? Oh man. It never fails to get me.

Mr. Burnout isn’t that movie. In fact, I don’t know what Mr. Burnout is. It’s such a strange combination of films from this genre, you don’t know what to make of it. Is has some Mr. Holland in it. It has some “Hamlet 2” in it. It adds a dash of Alexander Payne’s “Election.” It even has a little “Bad Teacher,” in there, the Cameron Diaz project I reviewed last year.

This script’s biggest strength is also its biggest weakness, and that’s that you’re never quite sure which direction it’s going to go.

Right away you know something’s different when we’re introduced to our hero, Eddie Burnett, via a voice over from a character who doesn’t show up until halfway into the script. This character, Charity, tells us that there was a time when our hero, Eddie, used to be an idealistic young teacher, signified by his star pupil, Laura, who used Eddie’s guidance to get into Princeton.

Since then, however, schools have become overpopulated, students uninterested, and budgets cut drastically. The kids, the parents, the government…nobody cares anymore. So a decade later, Eddie’s now a disinterested drunk teacher trying to make it through the day.

His classes are populated by morons and we focus on three in particular. There’s Roberto, a Hispanic kid who may or may not be a gangbanger. There’s Rose, who spends most of her classes sleeping instead of learning. And there’s Matthew, a privileged kid with every opportunity in the world, who just doesn’t put forth the effort.

What’s so frustrating about these three is that they’re all smart. They just don’t apply themselves. And, shit, Eddie sure isn’t going to put in the extra effort to change that.

Well…until now anyways. Charity, our voice from above, replaces one of the retired teachers and when she sees Eddie’s despicable behavior, tells him that she’ll sleep with him if he gets three of his students into one of the top colleges in the country.

I confess I’ve never actually seen Dangerous Minds.

To me, this is the weakest part of the screenplay and it’s a big problem in that it’s the hook of the movie. As we talked about the other day, when you’re dealing with logic in a script, you can get away with sketchy logic in the lesser plot points, but on the single most important section of the screenplay – that which dictates the story – you can’t be wishy-washy.

First of all, as Charity points out, we’re not even sure if she’s serious about the offer. Second, he just met this girl. Or more importantly, she just met him. So her offering is absurd. It would be like if a girl approached you at the bus stop and said, “I’ll sleep with you if you get me a job at the aquarium.” It just comes out of nowhere.

Anyway, with sex on the brain, Eddie transforms into an unstoppable teaching force. He helps his three students ace their SATs. He helps them ace their final. And he starts helping them in their real lives as well. This is where Mr. Burnout becomes most interesting, when we learn about Rose’s exhausting home life (thus why she’s sleeping in class), and Matthew’s overbearing father (thus why he’s so aloof). Nothing here is quite what it seemed on the surface, including Eddie himself, who’s got his own baggage exposed in a way that makes us completely reevaluate him.

Eventually, some teachers who never liked Eddie lobby to get him fired, and just when Eddie’s finally getting that teaching spark back, it turns out to be too late.

Mr. Burnout is messy. That would be the word of the day if Eddie asked me to write one on the board. There’s a good movie in here somewhere, particularly in the way these characters are explored and the thought that went into their backstories. But there are just too many elements fighting against each other to bring it all together.

Take Charity for example. I understand the advantage of viewing Eddie through a third person. How if *he* had been doing the voice over, we would’ve learned too many things about him that we didn’t want to know yet. But Charity is like an unapologetic plot-bot, there to feed us information on command and nothing else. Even when she gets into the story, it’s to artificially influence the plot with her “sex for kid’s college” trade.

Now had Charity and Eddie gone on a few dates, gotten to know each other, developed a friendship, and then she told him that, morally, she couldn’t continue a relationship with someone who didn’t care about the people he was teaching, and he then changed his ways in order to save that relationship – now that’s something I would be on board with.

Most people’s favorite “inspiring teacher” movie, Dead Poet’s Society

The problem is, we don’t have time for them to start a relationship. And the reason we don’t have time for them is we spent way too much time in the first act setting up that Eddie was a terrible teacher. We’re told again and again and again through numerous scenes that Eddie’s a lazy lousy teacher, when all we needed was one. When writers do this, overwrite their first acts, and oversell their hero’s weakness, it leaves them with less time to deal with key relationships later on, which is what you should be using your second act for. Which is exactly what happens with Eddie and Charity.

This should probably be the key relationship in the entire script. Yet it’s barely explored and only later does it turn into something real. Unfortunately by then it’s too late and we simply don’t believe it.

This carries over into the kids as well. All three kids, while having interesting backstories and interesting individual relationships with Eddie, don’t have any sort of relationship with each other. It’s almost as if Eddie is tutoring each of them on their own, since they rarely interact. In the one instance where we do see that interaction – Matthew’s crush on Rose – it starts so quickly and ends even more quickly – that it doesn’t feel real. I wouldn’t have minded a couple more students in the mix and we have more of a Breakfast Club vibe, where they actually acknowledge and deal with the issues they have with each other.

That said, there were some really nice emotional moments. Learning Eddie’s backstory was tough. It added another dimension to him that he needed, and transformed an unlikable frumplehorn into a sympathetic figure. The late reveal of Laura’s fate, Eddie’s prized pupil from the past, was also a punch in the gut. But even with these warmer goosebump-worthy touches, there was too much messiness, too much unfocused energy, to bring it all together in a satisfying way. I would love to see the version of this script with a coherent theme – specifically about the deterioration of the American school system. I don’t think that’s been done before, and seen through the filter of a dark comedy, it could really be fascinating. But since I’m not grading on potential, I probably can’t recommend this.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: You don’t usually need as much setup time as you think you do. We don’t need five scenes to show how much Eddie hates teaching. A lot of writers make this mistake. One strong scene or a couple of medium scenes is all you need to show your character’s big problem. Then move on. Feel free to remind us, but don’t block out full scenes to keep telling us what we already know. You’re going to need that time later to build up your characters and relationships.

As frequent readers of the site know, one of the more insightful commenters on Scriptshadow is Filmwonk (now Bohdicat). I don’t always have time to read through every comment, but he’s one commenter I always check in on, as he often points out stuff that I either didn’t have the time to get into or didn’t even think of altogether. So today Filmwonk is getting the full red carpet treatment and not just giving us a comment, but writing an entire review. Make sure to make him feel welcome.

Details: 114 pages. Dated November 2, 2006. (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

That night, Charlie dulls his pain by returning to his old ways and getting drunk. The following day brings a meeting regarding a new project, an animated film in which he’ll voice the part of an evil sperm – yes, you heard that right – opposite Adam Sandler’s “good” sperm. Charlie knows full well that it’s a piece of crap, but it’ll probably make a fortune.

The pairing of a rich and powerful person with someone of lesser circumstances seems to be recurring theme in the Curtis universe but not here – consider Julia Roberts’ movie star with Hugh Grant’s bookshop owner in “Notting Hill,” for example, or Hugh Grant’s Prime Minister with Martine McCutcheon’s tea-tray-toting Natalie. Right or wrong, I think audiences enjoy seeing someone move beyond their station, romantically speaking, whether that person is Cinderella or a workaday London interpreter. On the other hand, the idea that one famous actor would knock boots with another requires no stretch of the imagination whatsoever – it happens all the time.

 Rachel McAdams for Helen?

Die Hard. Some people say Jaws changed the way movies were made. Others say Star Wars. But an argument can be made that Die Hard had just as much of an influence on movies as both of those films, maybe not so much culturally, but definitely in how studios approached the tent pole film. The irony, of course, is that those same studios used Die Hard as their action template without realizing what made it great. Yeah, it has splosions. Yeah, Bruce Willis was perfect casting. Yeah, the action scenes were great. But the reason Die Hard is so awesome is because of its script.

So I decided to go back to the granddaddy of contained (action) thrillers and see if I couldn’t learn a few things from it. It didn’t take long. Die Hard is chock full of screenwriting tips if you pay attention, and I’m happy to highlight ten of them for you here.

BE CREATIVE WITH YOUR TICKING TIME BOMB
Every action movie should have a ticking time bomb. But that doesn’t mean incorporating one of those cheap digital timers with a big flashing “120 minutes” on it. Instead – just like every element in your screenplay – you should look for a fresh alternative. Here, the ticking time bomb is the seven locks to the safe the computer expert is hacking. It’s a clever countdown device we’ve never quite seen before (or since) and that’s why it works so well.

SMART INCORPORATION OF EXPOSITION
Most action writers think that the blood-soaked testosterone-fueled action genre gives them license to unload exposition onto the page like a garbage truck does garbage. “The audience won’t care,” they argue. “They just want to see explosions.” Errrr…wrong! Bad exposition eliminates suspension of disbelief, which in turn makes all those “explosion” scenes less exciting. So don’t fall into this trap. Be smooth in the way you unveil exposition. Take the scene in Die Hard where McClane is in the limo. We have to get some key exposition out about John’s on-the-rocks marriage before we get to the building. A lazy writer might’ve had an unprovoked McClane start rambling on about his broken marriage. Instead, the Die Hard writers make McClane resistant, practically “forced” into giving up details to his overly nosey limo driver. In fact, the limo driver is revealing (with his guesses) almost as much about McClane’s marriage as McClane is. “You mean you thought she wouldn’t make it out here and she’d come crawling on back, so why bother to pack?.” “Like I said Argyle, you’re fast.” It’s little details like this that elevate an action script.

ONE-LINERS
Ahhh, the snappy action one-liner. An 80s film staple. But no film has ever approached Die Hard in this category. In fact, 95% of one-liners you hear in action movies these days are groan-worthy. So how does Die Hard still hold up? Simple. McClane’s one-liners stem from his situation, NOT from a writer wanting to add a funny line. When you watch Die Hard and hear McClane say, “Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker,” you genuinely get the sense that he’s trying to add levity to the situation. He’s using humor to deflect the seriousness of his predicament. In other words, he’s not a mouthpiece for a clever line thought up by a writer, which is what every single one of these one-liners has been since Die Hard came out (please see The Expendables for numerous examples).

THE BAD GUY IS A WORTHY ADVERSERY
Hans is one of the greatest bad guys of all time. How can we learn from him to make our own bad guys memorable? The key to Hans working is that he’s a worthy adversary to John McClane. He isn’t some paint-by-the-numbers thug. Die Hard is one of the few action films I can remember where they made the villain as smart as the hero. Not just on paper. But you actually SEE IT. We see the FBI cutting the last lock to the safe, the only lock Hans didn’t have access to – all part of his plan. We see Hans pretending to be a hostage when he runs into McClane. By doing this, the audience has real doubts about whether our hero can outsmart this guy, which in turn pulls us in even more.

SOMETIMES THE STORY DICTATES WE DO THINGS WE DON’T WANT TO DO
Ideally, especially in an action movie, you’d want to introduce your main character with some sort of action scene that gives us insight into who they are. Unfortunately, the direction of the story may not afford you this opportunity. In Die Hard, a lot of the key things we learn about McClane early on are through dialogue. On the plane with the other passenger, in the limo with Argyle, on his conversation with his wife when he gets there. Sure, it would have been nicer if we could’ve *shown* these things instead of been *told* about them. But the situation is what it is. You need to get your main character to the building and you need the audience to know some things before he gets there. If a similar setup is required in your movie, embrace it and do the best you can with the situation. Forced to tell something through dialogue? Make it as seamless and interesting as you possibly can and move on.

DON’T FORGET TO SHOW WHAT YOUR HERO IS FIGHTING FOR
In 110 pages of story, it’s easy to forget what your hero is fighting for. In this case, McClane is trying to save his wife. If, then, we don’t see his wife for sixty minutes, we start to forget what his ultimate motivation is. In Die Hard, around the mid-point, Holly goes to Hans and asks him if she can get a couch for her pregnant friend and bathroom breaks for the rest of the hostages. It’s a small and seemingly insignificant scene, but it reminds us and reignites our passion for why John McClane must succeed.

ONE OF THE BEST SCENES YOU CAN WRITE
One might argue that the most memorable scene in Die Hard is when Hans pretends to be a hostage. Part of the reason we love this scene so much is because it’s such a clever move by our villain. But this is actually a setup for a scene that works almost every time you use it in a screenplay: We the audience know something that our main character doesn’t – that he’s in danger – and there’s nothing we can do to help him. The tension this creates in a scene – the helplessness we feel – works on an audience almost every time, so if you have the opportunity to use it, do so. Just make sure we like your hero. Obviously, if we don’t, we won’t be too worried when he’s seconds away from getting a bullet in the chest.

CHARACTER GOALS UP THE WAZOO
There are numerous character goals in Die Hard driving the story. That’s why, even though this is just a contained action film, it feels a lot more complicated and elaborate. McClane is trying to save his wife. McClane is trying to contact the police. Hans is trying to open the safe. Hans is trying to kill McClane. Hans is trying to find the detonators. The reporter’s trying to get the story. The FBI is trying to stop the terrorists. Al is trying to help McClane get out alive. Everybody’s got something to do in this movie and whenever they achieve what they’re trying to do, the writers give them something new to do. If too many characters run out of pressing things to do in an action script, put a fork in your screenplay, cause it’s done.

THINGS GET WORSE FOR OUR HERO AS THE SCRIPT GOES ON
In every action script, you want it to get tougher on your hero the closer he gets to the finish line. McClane’s feet are heavily cut, making it difficult for him to walk. Hans figures out that Holly is John’s wife and takes her hostage, making it more difficult to save her. In the final confrontation, McClane’s only got two bullets left, making his escape unlikely. Keep stacking the odds against your hero as he gets closer to achieving his goal.

DON’T PUSH YOUR LUCK
I’ve been slurping the Die Hard kool-aid all article. In parting, I have to take one shot at the film. There’s a famous line in a Kenny Rogers song that goes, “Know when to fold’em.” At a certain point, you’ve gotten everything you’ve needed out of your screenplay. When that happens, it’s time to say “The End.” In Die Hard, there’s a really cheesy forced moment in the final scene where Terrorist #1 bursts out of the building and Sergeant Al shoots him. It was one beat too many and almost ruined an extremely satisfying ending. You always want to leave your audience wanting more. Resist that “one last unnecessary moment” and type “The End” instead.

And that’s that. Now before I leave, I want to pose a question to you guys, cause the truth is, I’m not sure what the answer is. Die Hard has one of the most cliché moments in all of action films in its finale. Bruce Willis points a gun at our villain who’s pointing a gun at our damsel in distress. Could you ask for a more obvious final scenario? And yet, I was riveted. I was terrified for Holly and I was scared that Willis wouldn’t be able to save her. Outside of the obvious, “We liked the characters,” can you explain why this moment, despite being the very definition of cliché, still worked?

And tune in next Thursday where I break down Die Hard 2 and give you 10 examples of what NOT to do in an action film.