An example of how to make an action film

Rating: 8/10 (31 December 2007)

This film remains remarkably entertaining even now that I've watched hundreds of quality films. The story is pretty simple, a bunch of highly trained and intelligent thieves crash a business party. Also happening to be at the party is New York police officer, John McClane. The thieves didn't count on John McClane and John McClane proceeds to ruin the thieves plans (that's no spoiler).
As far as I can tell, the real joy in Die Hard is how we get from one point to another. In addition to the main action, we meet a number of side characters and a couple of minor side plots involving L.A.'s finest and McClane's personal life, but don't worry--these don't get in the way of the action. The pacing is tight, the production values are outstanding, and the acting, though not demanding, is met well by the actors involved.
This is not an intellectual movie or one that provides nuanced emotional delivery. This is about close calls, shootouts, fistfights, dodging bullets and blowing stuff up. If you really stop to think about what's going on and the series of decisions the characters make it will seem ridiculous, but the point isn't to be a hard hitting realistic work, but rather a piece of pure escapist action fare and Die Hard hits it all with such a high degree of polish and charisma that it will sweep up most people in its destructive path.
I can only fault it for taking some immensely obvious and sledgehammer-like means to tell the story of McClane's personal life and also having some of the side characters, especially the deputy chief of police, the FBI and the television reporter written so exaggeratedly that they, not the ridiculous action sequences, cause some credibility gaps to surface in the film.
Think of die hard as a high quality hot dog. While it's still excessive, it's remarkably tasty and produced so well that you notice the faults of so many other hot dogs you've had in the past. This is an example of what a purely entertainment oriented action movie should look like. It's fun and simple and you don't spend time having to gulp down huge buckets of disbelief to enjoy it. 8/10.