In 1979, author Roderick Thorp released a novel titled Nothing Lasts Forever, a story about ex-NYPD detective Joe Leland visiting his daughter in her high-rise office building during her Christmas party. The party is interrupted by terrorists with a heavy political agenda, and Leland uses his military and police training to eliminate the terrorist threat and save his daughter. Nine years later, this book was made into a fairly faithful film adaptation called Die Hard, renaming Leland as John McClane (Bruce Willis in his career-defining role), and changing the daughter of the novel into his wife. The claustrophobic pressures of the building and the tight, limited spaces keeping both McClane and the terrorists together kept Die Hard from being a rote action movie; instead, it was a wonderful, masterful suspense film – not quite Hitchcockian, but close enough for ‘80s movies. There was actual danger and a sense of dread, with the audience hanging on for dear life as McClane navigated his way through what must have been the most horrific night of his life. We felt for him when he had to walk across broken glass to escape a firefight, when he got shot, or when he had to confess that he hasn’t been the best person in the world to his wife. He was an underdog hero in the unlikeliest of situations, and audiences ate it up, with Die Hard becoming a beloved staple of American cinema.
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