John McClane

"Yippee-ki-yay, motherf*****!"

- John McClane's famous catchphrase

John McClane, Sr. is the main protagonist of the Die Hard film series. He is an Irish-American NYPD Detective Lieutenant who has the gift to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, getting involved in many terrorist attacks, that he often has to stop by himself. He also worked with the Los Angeles Police Department for a year.

He is played by Bruce Willis and carried a Beretta 92FS as his sidearm for many years.

Biography
His first appearance was as a streetwise and wisecracking cop, who travels to Los Angeles on Christmas Eve in an attempt to get back together with his estranged wife, Holly. When he arrives at her office skyscraper where she works, the building is taken over by a team of thirteen highly organized European terrorists, led by the suave yet sinister Hans Gruber, who intends on a heist of $640,000,000 in negotiable bank bonds that are in the building's vault and kill all hostages as part of a plan to get away with it. Barefoot and armed only with his Beretta 92F service pistol, he kills them all and drops Gruber out a thirty story high window when he attempts to kill Holly.

His second appearance was in Die Harder, exactly one year later, where he took on a group of mercenaries who took over the Washington-Dulles International Airport in Washington in order to free a dictator, D.C. Holly was on one of the planes that the terrorists were forcing to circle around the runways, desperately low on fuel. McClane took on all the terrorists again and killed their leader, Colonel Stuart, by lightning a trail of fuel which caused their airplane to explode as it took off in an escape attempt.

McClane's next appearance is in Die Hard with a Vengeance, where he is down in the dumps. McClane has become an alcoholic since Holly left him and he is lower than ever. McClane is suspended from the force for some antics that are never specified but he is reinstated when terrorist mastermind and genius Simon Gruber, plants bombs all over New York City and threatens to detonate them unless he goes through his twisted game of nearly impossible riddles and tasks, which send him careening from one end of the city to the other in a race against time with a tough, hotheaded shopkeeper named Zeus Carver. This is seemingly a revenge plot for his brother, but it is revealed to be a gold heist from the Federal Reserve worth of $140 billon. McClane later kills Simon by shooting his helicopter down into some power lines.

In the fourth film, McClane is now in his fifties and winds up getting drawn into a plot with a young hacker by a new breed of cyber-terrorists to shut down the United States Government infrastructure and then rob it blind in the denouement. McClane is able to outsmart the terrorists who use all their means to try and kill him, even tricking a fighter jet into attacking him while he is driving their semi truck. McClane later kills their leader, Thomas Gabriel, by shooting him through his own shoulder after he tries to kill McClane's daughter, Lucy.

In the fifth film he stops a nuclear weapons heist in Russia with his son, Jack. He and Jack kill Yuri Komarov and Irina Komarov, his daughter. Jack kills Yuri by tossing him off a roof into helicopter roters and Irina commits suicide in an attempt to kill Jack and John by crashing her helicopter into the building they were in. The two return back home and reunite with Lucy.

The sixth film is in the works, but the speculated plot involves McClane going to Japan with Lucy to recieve an honor from the Nakatomi corporation from the first film, only for it to be taken over by Japanese terrorists who are presumably trying to rob it.

Characteristics
McClane's appearance varies throughout the series, but the basis remains the same. It often consists of a flannel shirt, a pair of light trousers and a white tank top that is blackened over the course of each respective film. McClane's hairline also noticeably recedes until the point of it being almost invisible in the fourth film. McClane was a small but muscular man. With a tattoo on his left arm and a slightly unshaven face, McClane cut quite the intimidating figure when dealing with criminals. McClane had a scar on his left eyebrow that recieved further damage in both Die Hard and Die Hard 2. The scar can still be seen in 'Die Hard with a Vengence' but goes missing in the later sequels.

John is an average American man still stuck in the 20th century. With his cocky nature, McClane is able to stir up friendships quite easily as seen by his interaction with airplane passenger in the first film. However, this cocky nature also lands him in trouble with other authority figures in the series such as Dwayne T. Robinson and Carmine Lorenzo. Wisecracking and a smirk whenever he talks to someone, McClane held a very laid back and cool approach to dealing with the people around him, this ease would quickly disappear, however, when faced with life threatening occurrences such as Nakatomi and Dulles Airport. Early in the series, McClane seems quite taken aback by the death of Takagi, however, by the end of the series, it is quite common to McClane, who makes a trademark witty retort to his lifeless enemy.

While subtle, McClane's character does change slightly in every film. In the first 'Die Hard' McClane comes off as a little resevered and hard edged, which can be attributed to the marital problems, jet lag and the fact that he's in a situation he feels uncomfortable in. In 'Die Hard 2', McClane comes off as a lot more light-hearted and jokey. This is probably due to the fact that this is the only time in the series where he's shown happily married with no personal struggles to be found. Five years later we find McClane in 'Die Hard with a Vengeance' has hit rock bottom, having not spoken to Holly in a year and has become an alcoholic. McClane here is closer to how he was in the first film albeit in a more foul mood due to his hangover. In Live Free or Die Hard, McClane is shown to be bitter about his previous heroics, saying they cost him his family.

McClane was a heavy smoker during the first three Die Hard films, lighting up whenever he got a chance to relax. In "Die Hard 2" while running to catch Esperanza's plane on the runway, McClane states "[He's] gotta quit smokin' cigarettes." In "Die Hard with a Vengeance" McClane only lights up once, probably due to the fact that he never got a real chance to relax, especially since he spent a lot of the film running. Towards the end of the film, McClane is seen pulling out a packet of cigarettes, only to throw them away when he realizes that they're soaking wet. He's never seen smoking in either "Live Free or Die Hard" or "A Good Day to Die Hard", possibly because he quite smoking before the events of "Live Free or Die Hard". Bruce Willis was behind this change. A non-smoker himself, he didn't want children to go see McClane glorifying smoking. McClane was also a heavy drinker in "Die Hard with a Vengeance" and most likely raised Catholic, as he knew how to do the sign of the Cross and told Zeus how to do it properly.

Appearances
Bruce Willis plays John McClane in five films:


 * Die Hard (first appearance)
 * Die Hard 2: Die Harder
 * Die Hard with a Vengeance
 * Live Free or Die Hard
 * A Good Day to Die Hard