The fifth installment of the “Die Hard” series hits theaters today. My husband and I are making it our Valentine’s date on Monday when we have a day off together. Part 1 of the gift was buying the first four movies on blu-ray and having a Bruce Willis marathon last weekend.
I really wanted to write a dinner-and-a-movie column to go with the flicks, but it’s impossible: Food just doesn’t play a big role, except for one thing: Twinkies, the favored snack cake of Sgt. Al Powell, who helps John McClane deal with the terrorist takeover of Nakatomi Plaza.
Except as well know, we are living in a world without Twinkies.
But one thing that does play a big role in McClane’s ongoing saga is alcohol. The man has a drinking problem, which gets worse as his police career, marriage and life deteriorate throughout the four movies. So in honor of McClane’s issues, and to make the films even that much more fun, instead of dinner and a movie, this is The Die Hard Drinking Game. You can play this with any of the four flicks — that’s the glory of action movies.
In case you haven’t played a drinking game since college, the rules are simple: Start the evening by deciding your drink-of-choice, make sure you’ve got enough ingredients to keep the fun flowing, and probably have some munchines so you have a nice base for all that booze. Whenever the event in the rules happens, you have to take a drink. Some occurences require finishing your beverage and other fun.
We tried to think of a rule for how the amount you drink changes in proportion to Bruce Willis’ receding hair line, but that really just got too complicated.
My husband and I came up with some preliminary rules, but feel free to add your own if your a die-hard “Die Hard” fan like we are.
And when you recover from your hangover, go check out “A Good Day to Die Hard” in theaters.
The Die Hard Drinking Game
1. Anytime McClane improvises a weapon: Drink (Example - Swinging a golf club in “Die Hard 2: Die Harder”)
2. Anytime McClane utters his signature line, (that’d be “yippie ki-ya, expletive deleted”): Finish your drink
3. If McClane loses an article of clothing (shoes, shirt, etc): Drink
4. Whenever McClane loses his gun: Swap drinks with another player
5. Whenever anyone makes fun of the bad guy’s accent: Drink
6. Anytime something happens that makes you gasp in shock (for me, it’s always that scene in “Die Hard With A Vengence” where that dude gets cut in half. Gets me everytime): Finish your drink
7. Whenever McClane completely gets his butt kicked: Swap drinks with another player, and finish it
8. Any reference to how terrible his marriage is/was: Drink
9. Anytime McClane says something along the lines of, “Hey, it’s OK, I’m a cop.”: Drink
10. Anytime McClane figures out the plot-misdirection: Finish your drink (can include that the bad guys were shooting blank, this is really all about the money, etc.)
That should get you started (and, really, plowed). But there’s so many more you could add: Anytime he references how he doesn’t like to fly, any joke about how he’s “done this before”, inner-movie references to previous films ... it goes on and on.
I only recommend playing with one movie in a night, depending on what you’re drinking. We don’t advocate alcohol poisoning. This is a family-friendly newspaper, after all.
Enjoy responsibly!