John McClane
Background
John McClane is a police officer with the NYPD in New York City, New York. His wife is Holly Gennero McClane and his children are Lucy McClane and John Jr. John has been a cop for 11 years.
During the events of Die Hard (1988) played by Bruce Willis
As their plane lands, Businessman notices John tightly gripping the seat armrest. The Businessman gives John a hint on how to relax after the flight and tells him to remove his shoes and socks and to walk around making fists with his toes. He passes by a Stewardess, who smiles at him. As John is walking through the airport he sees a Couple at Airport run and hug each other. He sees Argyle holding a sign with J. McClane and Argyle tells him, he is his limo driver. As they drive to Nakatomi Plaza, Argyle asks questions about John and his background and John admits he thought Holly would fail and have to come back to New York City. Argyle drops off John and tells him he is going to park in the parking garage until John finds out where he is staying. John goes up to one of the Guards and tells him he is there to see Holly, and when the Guard shows him the computer directory to use, John notices Holly is using her maiden name. John is then directed to the 30th floor. John gets out of the elevator and as he is walking through the party, he is kissed by Kissing Man. He walks up to Takagi and Takagi guesses he is looking for Holly. Takagi walks John to Holly's office and they find Ellis snorting cocaine on her desk. Holly walks in and hugs John. Holly asks him if he has a place to stay and invites him to stay at her house and he asks how Lucy and John Jr. are doing. A Man & Woman burst into Holly's office and apologize and leave. John and Holly start to argue and Ginny goes into Holly's office and tells her that Takagi is looking for her and wants her to make a speech.
John does the trick that the Businessman told him about and it works. John calls Argyle, but the call is dropped. Hans Gruber goes to the 30th floor along with Franco, Alexander, Marco, Uli, Fritz and James. They then shoot in the air to get the attention of the party goers. John hears the gunshots and panic of the party goers and sees Holly being taken away. He manages to escape to the stairwell and sees Theo and Kristoff moving large trunks on the 31st floor. John continues on to one of the incomplete floors and sees Girl in Window talking on the phone. John continues up the stairs and sees Uli, Marco and Heinrich transporting guided missiles. Takagi is brought to his office and Hans tells him, he wants the system key code so he can steal the $640,000,000 in bonds in the building vault. Takagi refuses to give the code and Hans shoots him in the head. John, who was watching from the other room, runs away, but Karl and Hans hear him. John pulls the fire alarm and Tony goes to the floor where the fire alarm was pulled and he and John get into a fight. They fall down the stairs and Tony breaks his neck. John goes through Tony's bag and takes his walkie talkie, lighter, weapon and magazines. He rides the elevator down while hiding on the roof and listens as Hans finds the body of Tony and lists the names of other members of the group. John goes to the roof and calls for help on the walkie talkie. Supervisor advises John that he is using an emergency channel. Karl, Franco and Fritz take the elevator to the roof. They start shooting at John and John manages to barely get away and hides in the air ducts. Sgt. Al Powell gets out of his vehicle. John grabs a chair and uses it to break the window in Takagi's office, alerting James who radios Heinrich, who sends Marco after John. Heinrich and Marco go into Takagi's office and John shoots and kills both of them. As Powell is leaving, John throws Marco's body onto the hood of his patrol vehicle and starts shooting at it.
John uses the walkie talkie to taunt Hans and goes through Heinrich's bag and then takes it. Powell radios John and John tells him about the terrorists and how many and the location of the hostages. He advises John to wait for help. Capt. Mitchell and his SWAT team get ready to enter the building and Hans tells the others to get ready. Rivers and his team advance on the building and the terrorists shoot out the police spot lights. Mitchell sends an armored personnel carrier, (APC) towards the building. Alexander and James fire the missile launcher at the APC, stopping it in its tracks. After Hans tells Alexander to shoot the APC one more, John takes a block of C4 and puts it on a chair and drops it down the elevator chute. The explosion blows out most of the lower floors, killing Alexander and James. Dwayne T. Robinson takes the radio from Powell and tells John they don't want his help. Ellis gets the attention of Fritz and he is brought before Hans. Ellis tells Hans he can help him by bringing him John. Ellis tells John he told Hans that they were old friends and then tells him to surrender and to hand over the detonators or Hans will kill him. John yells that Ellis isn't his friend and Hans shoots Ellis for no longer being useful.
As Hans is checking on the roof explosives, he is found by John and acts like he is a hostage. Hans notices John doesn't have any shoes on and radios Karl and Fritz where he is at. John figures out there must be more explosives and the elevator doors open and Karl, Fritz and Franco get out. John kills Fritz and then Franco and Hans tells Karl to shoot the glass panes in the room. John runs to an elevator, but in the process is forced to walk barefoot over glass and Hans recovers the detonators. John radios Powell and asks him to tell Holly he should have been more supportive of her and that he was sorry. He goes to the roof and finds the explosives and is then attacked by Karl. John ties a chain around Karl's neck and then runs towards the roof. He shoots and kills Uli and Ginny tells John, Hans took Holly to the vault. John tells the Hostages to get off the roof and then ties a fire house around his waist and jumps off the roof as Hans remotely detonates the explosives. As Kristoff is running off with a bag of bonds, John hits him with the butt stock of his weapon, knocking him unconscious. He walks into the hallway and Hans pulls Holly in front of him and puts a gun to her head. Hans orders John to put down his gun and as Hans is about to shoot him, John starts laughing and pulls a gun he taped to his back and shoots Hans and then Eddie in the forehead. Hans falls out a window, but grabs Holly by her wrist and watch. John unlocks the watch and Hans falls to his death. John and Holly leave the building and John meets Powell face to face for the first time and they hug and John introduces Powell to Holly. Robinson walks up to John and demands a debriefing and Karl walks out of the building holding a rifle. As he is about to shoot John, Powell shoots Karl dead. Argyle rams the limo out of the buildings security gates. As John and Holly are walking towards the limo, Thornburg asks them what their feelings are, and Holly punches him in the face. John and Holly kiss and Argyle drives them home.
