Hart Bochner is the man you would least like to be stuck in a lift with, and he plays him so well that one such man in Die Hard has outlasted most leading roles. A narrow gift, and a real one.
Fi1m perspective
Harry Ellis in Die Hard (1988) is a coked-up executive with a good suit, a wide smile and no idea how far out of his depth he is. Bochner has said that when you are playing a bad guy, "you look for their insecurity, which drives their behavior," and that is the whole performance: the confidence is on the surface and the fear is a quarter of an inch beneath it, and both are visible from the back row. We laughed at Ellis, and the laugh had a wince in it, because Bochner lets us see the man is about to be found out a beat before the man does.
Our own review of the film spends its words on Bruce Willis's vulnerability and Alan Rickman's composure and never stops for Ellis. That is fair, because the film belongs to those two. It is also typical of what has happened to Bochner. Critics look past him; audiences do not. The part is the one people quote, it turns up whenever anyone lists the great screen sleazeballs, and he was still being asked about it a quarter of a century later.
The career before it promised something wider. He began in 1977 in Islands in the Stream, got noticed as Rod in Breaking Away (1979), and in the same year as Die Hard took a proper lead in Apartment Zero (1988), a psychological thriller opposite Colin Firth. After that the offers were mostly supporting, and mostly the same man: slick, self-interested, sure of himself for no good reason. He voices one of them in Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993), where Councilman Arthur Reeves leads the chorus deciding that a caped killer must be Batman. Reeves is Ellis with a different job, a politician who has settled the answer before hearing the question, and Bochner's voice gives him exactly the polish the drawing needs.
He has said he never much wanted to act and set his sights early on directing, and he has done it three times: PCU (1994), High School High (1996) and Just Add Water (2008). We have not reviewed them and will not judge them here. The acting has continued alongside, in supporting parts and television guest spots into the 2020s.
If you want to see what he can do, Die Hard is the place, and you will have to watch the film around him, which is no hardship. Most actors spend a career hoping for one part that lasts. Bochner got his, and it has followed him about ever since like a colleague he cannot shake at a party.
Biography
Hart Bochner is a Canadian actor, director, screenwriter and producer. He was born on 3 October 1956 in Toronto, Ontario, the son of actor Lloyd Bochner and concert pianist Ruth (née Roher).
Bochner made his film debut in Islands in the Stream (1977) and appeared in Breaking Away (1979). He is known for his role as Harry Ellis in Die Hard (1988) and voiced Arthur Reeves in Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993). Other credits include Supergirl (1984), Apartment Zero (1988) and the miniseries War and Remembrance (1988–89).
He has directed the films PCU (1994) and High School High (1996). Bochner is a board member of the Environmental Media Awards.
