NYPD cop John McClane goes on a Christmas vacation to visit his wife Holly in Los Angeles where she works for the Nakatomi Corporation. While they are at the Nakatomi headquarters for a Christmas party, a group of bank robbers led by Hans Gruber take control of the building and hold everyone hostage, with the exception of John, while they plan to perform a lucrative heist. Unable to escape and with no immediate police response, John is forced to take matters into his own hands.
—Sam



Tough New York cop John McClane finds himself in a tight situation when an office building in Los Angeles is taken over by terrorists. Apart from himself, everyone else in the building - including his wife - is held at gunpoint while their captors spell out their demands. The F.B.I. are called in to survey the situation, but John McClane has other plans for the terrorists...
—Graeme Roy



New York cop John McClane flies to Los Angeles on Christmas eve to spend the holidays with his family. He arrives at the Nakatomi corp. building for his wife's office party. International terrorists take over the building and hold every one as hostage to steal $600 million of bonds from the vaults of the building. Now its up to McCLane to face the terrorists and save his wife and the other hostages.
—Sami Al-Taher



In the city of Los Angeles, a Christmas party is held on the 30th floor of the Nakatomi Plaza Hotel. While the party is going on, downstairs, a band of German terrorists arrive and take the entire building hostage including its employees and attempt a huge robbery. But the only one who eludes capture is New York City Cop John McClane who launches a one man war in an attempt to stop the terrorists and save all hostages including his wife Holly.
—Shaun Ouimette {xtreemshaun589@hotmail.com}



John McClane is a cop from New York City who is on his way to Los Angeles to see his kids and his wife Holly, who moved to LA because of a job at the Nakatomi Corporation. When he arrives at Nakatomi Plaza, he meets Holly's boss Joe Takagi and her co-worker Harry Ellis. He and Holly go into a private bathroom and get into an argument. When Holly leaves to give a speech, thirteen armed terrorists lead by Hans Gruber seize control of the building and take the occupants of the 30th floor, who are the only ones left in the building, hostage. Luckily, they missed John and he has to figure out how to save the hostages before the terrorists get their way.
—Ridley Lavine



John McClane, officer of the NYPD, tries to save his wife Holly Gennaro and several others that were taken hostage by German terrorist Hans Gruber during a Christmas party at the Nakatomi Plaza in Los Angeles.
—rball4042





SYNOPSIS

John McClane, a detective with the New York City Police Department, arrives in Los Angeles to attempt a Christmas reunion and reconciliation with his estranged wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia), who is attending a party thrown by her employer, the Nakatomi Corporation, at its still-unfinished American branch office headquarters, the high-rise Nakatomi Plaza. McClane is met at the airport by Argyle, a limo driver charged with taking John to Holly's office. As he enters the lobby, he finds that the building's staff directory is an automated computer program listing Holly under her maiden name, Gennaro. When he gets off the elevator on the 30th floor, he sees a lavish holiday party is underway. John is met by Holly's boss, Takagi, a genial Japanese businessman. After McClane refreshes himself from the flight in Holly's corporate room, they have an argument over the use of her maiden name but Holly is called away.

As the party continues, a convoy of trucks makes its way to the building. Two men, Karl (Alexander Godunov) and Theo (Clarence Gilyard Jr.), arrive at the front desk to divert security's attention away from the trucks. Karl guns down the guards while Theo commandeers the closed circuit security field. Terrorists led by the slick and well-mannered German anarchist Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) emerge from the trucks and hold the partygoers as hostages in exchange for terrorist operatives in prison. In the confusion, McClane is able to disappear unnoticed into the building's maintenance areas. Takagi is taken from the party and learns that Gruber is actually using the hostage situation as a cover to steal $640 million in bearer bonds stored in the building's vault. McClane is unable to stop Gruber from executing Takagi when he refuses to hand over the vault's combination.

McClane attempts to alert the local police by setting off a fire alarm, but this fails, and he is promptly discovered by Karl's brother, Tony. McClane kills Tony, taking his gun and radio, which he uses to contact the LAPD. Karl demands vengeance, and convinces Gruber to send two more henchmen, Marco and Heinrich, to neutralize him. McClane kills them both and secures a quantity of C4 explosives and all the crucial detonators which Heinrich was setting into prepared explosives. Thought the LAPD initially refuses to take McClane's distress call seriously, they send Sergeant Al Powell (Reginald VelJohnson) whom arrives to check the building. Initially finding nothing amiss, he drives off but McClane, in one last desperate move before his last hope for outside help leaves, gets his attention by throwing Marco's corpse onto Powell's patrol vehicle. Another detachment of Gruber's men opens fire on Powell's car.

With Powell now definitely knowing that the emergency call was real, the situation rapidly escalates as the Los Angeles Police Department comes in force and surrounds the Nakatomi Building. However, Gruber is not too concerned: although the police responded somewhat sooner than he planned thanks to McClane's interference, the police are a necessary and unwitting part of Gruber's plan in the first place. As part of that plan, Gruber contacts the police with a list of difficult demands such as the release of various real terrorists he has no connection with and has only read about in the news to stall them.

Meanwhile, the SWAT team, led by Deputy Chief Robinson (Paul Gleason) arrives to storm the building. However, Theo notices their movements on the security feed and alerts Gruber. McClane attempts to get Powell to stop the SWAT team from walking into a trap, but Powell cannot convince his superiors. The SWAT team is repelled, the SWAT armoured vehicle is disabled by a rocket launcher, and the police are out-gunned by the firepower of the terrorists. To stop two of Gruber's men from continuing to fire upon the disabled SWAT armored car, McClane drops C4 down the elevator shaft and destroys the entire floor where the terrorists are firing from, giving the cops a chance to retreat. This attracts the attention of the press, led by sleazy reporter Richard Thornberg (William Atherton), and the FBI, led by Special Agent Johnson (Robert Davi) and his partner, Special Agent Johnson (Grand L. Bush).

As the remainder of Gruber's men attempt to find McClane and the detonators, one of the hostages, Harry Ellis (Hart Bochner), betrays McClane's identity to Gruber. Gruber uses the radio to contact McClane, and demands that McClane return the detonators or else he would shoot one of the hostages. McClane refuses, and Gruber kills Ellis, to the horror of the police force who heard everything on radio. McClane continues to keep moving through the building to try to learn Gruber's plans. McClane and Gruber accidentally meet but Gruber gains McClane's trust by passing himself off as an escaped hostage. But then Gruber's identity is discovered as he threatens to shoot McClane. When Gruber's men arrive, McClane flees, dropping the detonators.

The FBI play their final card by shutting off the building's power while they plan a helicopter raid onto the roof. However, Gruber had planned for the FBI's predictability - disconnecting the power opened the final electromagnetic lock on the vault and gave him access to the bonds. He has used the recovered detonators to rig the helipad on the building's roof with explosives, knowing the FBI would attempt a sneak gunship attack on the building. After the FBI informs Gruber that his demands have been met, Gruber's men force the hostages to the roof to be killed by the explosions, so they could escape in the confusion. McClane, after fighting off Karl and failing to warn the police of the Gruber's doublecross, is able to get the hostages back inside safely, but the FBI helicopter shoots at him, believing he's one of the terrorists. The helipad explodes, the helicopter is destroyed both Johnsons are killed in the explosion.

Gruber has discovered from Thornberg's investigative newscast that Holly Gennaro is McClane's wife. He holds her hostage to prevent McClane from interfering in his getaway. McClane, down to his last two bullets, is able to lull Gruber into a trap, killing the last remaining terrorist and wounding Gruber, who falls backwards and out of the building through a window. Gruber manages to hang onto Holly's wristwatch, his weight dragging her out the window as well. McClane is able to unstrap the watch and lets Gruber fall to his death. Meanwhile, Theo is detained by McClane's limo driver, Argyle, after collecting the bonds. McClane and Holly leave the building together, and meet Powell face to face for the first time. Karl comes out behind McClane and Holly with an assault rifle, but Powell, who had previously confessed to McClane that he had not fired a gun since he accidentally shot a child years ago, draws and shoots him before he can harm McClane and Holly. Thornberg attempts to interview them as they are leaving the scene, Holly punches him in the face. McClane and Holly take off in Argyle's limo as the building is secured by the police.