Die Hard With A Vengeance

Die Hard is another thriller that we have watched in class, the film begins with an anonymous man demanding John McLaine, who had no longer been working with the police force due to a suspension.

The anonymous male who refers to himself as  Simon had set off a bomb in the city to get the attention of the police force, he then has ridiculous requests for McLaine, filling the role of a puppet master who wants to get inside the head of John, he is relatively successful in doing this. Simon gets John and the rest of the police force to obey his demands because he threatens that there will be more explosions if they do not obey his every demand. 

When John gets himself into a spot of trouble he is saved by an unwilling man named Zeus, they eventually partner up to bring Simon down.  In the middle of the film they both have to obey Simon's orders and they end up saving a lot of lives because despite Simon saying that he will stop the bombs if the tasks are completed, some of them were set off anyway.

Putting the pieces of the puzzle together Zeus and McLaine are able to bring simon down in an incredibly well executed death scene which includes the explosion of a helicopter mid air. 

A lot of the tasks set by Simon were only put there in an attempt to lure Zeus and McLaine into their deaths however working together and putting their differences aside they were able to solve the puzzles and stay alive. 

There is an iconic scene where Simon throws McLaine a container of pills, mocking him because he had requested some Aspirin which contains the location of where they are going to meet later on, this allows the police to intercept Simon and stop him. 

Several techniques were used in this film to throw the audience off and make sure that they continue to pay attention the whole way through, for example, we were lead to believe that the actions of Simon were purely based on revenge, but we later find out that they were based on monetary gain instead and that he didn't even like his brother in the first place.

There was also a split second red herring used in the film because the audience was lead to believe that all the gold Simon had stolen would actually get blown up when really he was planning on claiming it all for himself.

Members of the audience may not have expected Simon to die, but he did, in a very well executed scene. This may be considered to be another red herring.