John McTiernan – A Retrospective

I’ve previously written retrospectives on three directors: Ingmar Bergman, Terry Gilliam, and Quentin Tarantino. So, looking out over the sea of film directors, I came across John McTiernan’s name. He’s a director I’ve known for his most popular work (Predator and Die Hard) but never really thought about holistically. So, sitting down to watch all eleven of his films was instructive.

For the other three, there were strong thematic concerns that connected all of their work, but any thematic co...