Depiction
In the first Die Hard film in 1988, John McClane is an Irish American detective with the New York City Police Department and has been an officer for 11 years. At the beginning of the first film, he is recently separated from his wife Holly Gennero (Bonnie Bedelia), who is using her maiden name. Holly moved to Los Angeles several months earlier to pursue a career, leading to their separation when McClane stayed behind (to officially cope with some open cases but unofficially because he didn't expect her to last). They have two children, Lucy and John. On Christmas Eve, McClane visits his wife at her workplace at the Nakatomi Plaza. Simultaneously, Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) initiates his plan to steal $640 million in bearer bonds and takes the Nakatomi Company employees, including Holly, hostage, posing as terrorists to draw attention away from the theft, their final plan being to blow up the building and make it appear as though they died with the hostages in the explosion. McClane escapes detection and manages to hide throughout the building, killing the terrorists one by one. When McClane meets the terrorists' leader, Hans Gruber, a climactic battle ensues and McClane throws Gruber out the window.
After the events of Die Hard, McClane moves to Los Angeles, is promoted to lieutenant and is transferred to the Los Angeles Police Department. During this time, McClane appears to have become a national hero. Dialogue in the second film reveals that he was featured in People Magazine, did a spot on Nightline, and was referred to (by Colonel Stuart) as "the policeman hero who saved the Nakatomi hostages" along with a local news crew. In the second film Die Hard 2, which takes place on Christmas Eve, McClane discovers that mercenaries have seized control of Washington Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Virginia, 25 miles west of Washington, D.C.. They take control of the airport's communications and threaten to cause plane crashes unless their demands are met. Holly is traveling on one of the planes and is stranded as her plane circles overhead. McClane discovers a conspiracy between the mercenaries and an active military unit to rescue a notorious dictator from being imprisoned for crimes against humanity. He foils their plans and provides a visual landing signal for the circling aircraft by exploding the plane the villains were using for their exit strategy.
In the third film Die Hard with a Vengeance, McClane is back in New York. He is now separated from his wife, suspended from the police force, and a borderline alcoholic. A terrorist who goes only by the name "Simon" (Jeremy Irons) threatens to blow up various locations in the city unless McClane will play his twisted version of Simon says. McClane must solve a number of riddles and challenges in order to keep the bombs from going off. He receives the reluctant help of Zeus Carver (Samuel L. Jackson), a shopkeeper from Harlem who had saved McClane after the first challenge "Simon" had put him through, when Simon forces Carver to continue assisting McClane. The FBI finally reveals that "Simon" is in fact Simon Peter Gruber, the brother of Hans Gruber, who is attempting to kill McClane in revenge for his brother's death in the first film. In a subsequent revelation, McClane discovers that revenge is only a timely and clever cover story to conceal the true purpose behind his terrorist activities: the forced depletion of New York's Federal Reserve, having gained access to the bank during the game by setting off a bomb in a location that damaged the underground vault. With the help of Carver, McClane tracks Simon to the Canadian border. There, in a decisive final confrontation with the latter in a helicopter, McClane puts an end to Simon's plan with a handgun and a power line.
In the fourth film Live Free or Die Hard, which takes place on Independence Day, McClane is assigned to take hacker Matt Farrell (Justin Long) into FBI custody (McClane is mentioned as having been on the force for 30 years at the time of this film). In this film his rank, besides being a senior detective, is detective lieutenant. They soon discover that a group of terrorists led by Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant), are conducting a fire sale, systematically taking out the nation's infrastructure (including power plants, traffic lights, transportation, and financial markets). McClane and his wife are divorced and McClane is not on speaking terms with his daughter, Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). During the course of the film Lucy is kidnapped by the terrorists as leverage against McClane. McClane's previous actions seem mostly forgotten, as Farrell was unaware of his past and McClane is somewhat cynical about what he did. With help from Farrell, McClane manages to yet again thwart a disaster, Farrell countering Gabriel's hacks while McClane eliminates his men, culminating in McClane shooting through his own shoulder to kill Gabriel. His actions also seem to restore his relationship with his daughter or at least help restore it as the two are back on speaking terms again and Lucy introduces herself as Lucy McClane to Farrell when in the past she introduced herself as Lucy Gennero and apparently told guys her father was dead.
Bruce Willis again returns as John McClane A Good Day to Die Hard,
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