The original and painfully brief node:
Said by the character Hans Gruber in the movie
Die Hard, after John McClane kills one of Hans' men and leaves him in an elevator to be discovered. John wrote the phrase on the dead guy's sweater in order to intimidate and annoy Hans. Pretty
fucking hilarious.
Update an unspecified time later:
It has been pointed out to me that this post is misleading. Some who have seen the movie, believe that this statement was made not
by Hans Gruber but
to him by Bruce Willis' character. It has been suggested I rewrite this write-up to reflect that. However, if one were to watch the film Die Hard again, one would note that
Bruce Willis never actually says the line. He writes it onto the dead guy's sweater with a red marker or lipstick or something he finds in the building. It is
Alan Rickman who actually says the line, reading it from the sweater with a sense of ironic sarcasm.
This is a very useful quote in many situations. It is good to say to friends over drinks for an easy laugh, provided everyone at the table's seen the movie. You can also use this quote on a subway train or some other crowded place filled with strangers. It never ceases to cause confusion and uneasiness.
Update June 15th, 2005:
Fellow E2 participant
BlackPawn has pointed out to me that he "believe(s) the statement was written in
blood kindly donated" to John McClane "by the guy it was written on." This is entirely
plausible, however there is no evidence in the film confirming this. We never actually see McClane write out the phrase. Come to think of it, it's silly to think a man in McClane's position, concerned that at any moment another thug could show up to try and kill him, would take the time to write out the phrase on the dead guy's sweat shirt. While, it's pretty creepy to think McClane would actually use blood to write on a dead guy, it certainly would have been more efficient and less time consuming for McClane, given the situation.
Furthermore, and I'm going from memory at this point so please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, The dead guy was killed via a broken neck, after he and McClane took a tumble down the stairs. So he wasn't dead in a way that left a gaping wound and a lot of blood. However, by this point in the story, McClane had already suffered injuries that broke his skin. Therefore, it's
more plausible to surmise that McClane had used
his own blood to write the words on the dead guy's
sweatshirt.
By the way the name of the dead guy, who has the phrase in question written on his gray shirt, was Tony, Karl's brother. Tony was played by
Andreas Wisniewski, a
Berlin born actor who's been in a dozen other films including
Gothic,
The Living Daylights, and the first
Mission: Impossible film with
Tom Cruise.