Written by Mr. Mouseburger 5th Jun 2005
Rickman has, throughout the film, been magnificent as the leader of the ultra slick "Euro Trash" trying to make an audacious heist on the Nakatomi Corporation.
His plan has gone slightly awry when visiting cop John McClane gatecrashes the heist and proceeds to kill all of Hans' trained mercenaries. Nevertheless, Hans has finally managed to gain the upper hand on McClane, by using McClane's wife, Holly, as bait. In doing so, Hans manages to lure McClane out in to the open.
McClane has the look of a beaten man; he is cut to pieces, sweating profusely, and is wearing nothing but a pair of stay crease action slacks. Or so Hans thinks. The audience is treated to a view of McClane’s back, where he has discreetly taped a gun with some Christmas wrapping tape. McClane puts his hands behind his head, in a gesture of submission and quick as a flash he rips the gun from his back and fires off a shot which hits Hans in the chest, quickly followed by a nice headshot to the last of Hans' henchmen.
Hans Up!!
Hans, staggering from the shot, is not finished yet. Still holding Holly, he crashes through the window of the skyscraper and hangs on to her arm for dear life. Maclane comes to her aid and tries to prize Hans off. All the while, Hans is slowly levelling a gun at McClane with the intention of ending his life. McClane (and the audience) focuses on the watch on Holly's wrist. Unclasping the butter hook, Hans' grip on Holly is released just at the moment he was about to shoot. At this point, gravity takes over, and Hans plummets countless storeys to his death.
Hans so low
This is a very good death overall and for it's time. The shot into hans stoach is almost unseeable(I think thats where he is shot), but his death by falling is incredibly done I would definetly watch the movie to see this scene.
yes, i really like the way he falls, it looks a bit dated now, but at least they didn't use a dummy!!
Mouseburger
did his brother Simon meet the same fate Hans did?
Good description, yes, but missing the delicious irony of Gruber's death: that the watch which McClane unclasps is the very watch Holly received as a bonus for her hard work ("It's a Rolex," smarms cokehead co-worker Ellis, in an earlier scene). Thus in one fell swoop, McClane undoes not only Gruber's plans for grand-scale robbery and misdirection, but also a symbolic tie of the distance between himself and his wife.
D
I have heard from various places that Gruber is one of the greatest movie villains ever, I however, disagree. He was afterall, just a thief, an exceptional thief maybe, but still, just a thief! In my opinion, although Gruber was a great baddie, he doesn't place in the top ten! Try his hulking assistant, Karl.
Ah, but isn't Karl also just a thief? In fact, aren't all of Hans' gang members just thieves? There's plenty of great and memorable villains whose occupations and ambitions don't involve trying to take over the world.
I may be stupid but how did they do his fall?
Lower a stuntman on a harness at a certain speed or something?
For the close-ups, they dropped Rickman himself on a blue mat that they later replaced with the ground. The long shot is achieved via a dummy (the SE DVD shows an outtake which clearly shows the trouble with doing this).
Oh, darn it! I don't own the DVD!
Thanks though. Dang, I wonder how the dummy swung its hands and legs around like that.
It may a similar dummy to the ones used on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. There, they used dummies for when the bridge fell apart and they have electronics that allowed the FX guys to make them kick and flail.
Amd make sure you get the 2 Disc.
Okay, thanks, I probably will!
I heard to get Rickman's fantastic reaction that they told him they would drop him on the blue mat on the count of three. But then dropped him on two thus surprising him.
Yeah, that is true.
i was told that they dropped him off the building completely, but thats me. Alan was quite fortunate in this case then.
What about "shot"?
Damn right Major Baxter!! i have added in shot
The writeup left out one of the best things about this: Dwayn T. Robinson, seeing (identity unknown) Hans fall, and saying "Oh, I hope that's not a hostage."
Dwayne also gets another one of my favorite lines: "We're gonna need some more FBI guys, I guess..."
I don't think they shoot at each other enough for Gunfight. I will say though that Mexican Standoff can easily replace that.