A very overrated action film.

Rating: 4/10 (15 February 2005)

This movie is on this sites top 250 but I can't figure out why so many people like it. The problem simply is that John McClane makes one stupid decision after another.
SPOILERS AHEAD
The scene where Tony is looking for John and is obviously going to kill him with that submachine of his is the best example.
John sneaks up behind Tony and presses his semi-auto against his head, then pistol whips and then fight him with his bare hands, instead of forcing him to relinquish the gun first. Tony then tries to shoot John. Any averagely smart cop would have shot Tony.
Another example is the scene where John was trying to signal the cop, Al by breaking the window with the chair. A gunman comes into the room, but John is ready for him. With his pistol raised he tells the gunman to put his gun down. John has no back up or assistance to take restrain the guy so attempting to force the guy to surrender wouldn't be wise. Another gunman enters the room just after that, and because John chose not to shoot the first one who entered, that makes things a lot more challenging.
And the third is, in the scene where John meets Hans, face to face for the first time. Hans is unarmed, and John has a gun pointed at him. They both hear the elevator arrive at the floor they're on, which of course means more henchmen are coming. For some reason John doesn't shoot Hans as the elevator doors begin to open. He shoots at the henchmen just as they are coming out out of elevator and runs. The mistake there was leaving Hans alive. I know the filmmakers wouldn't want the hero killing of the main villain early, but couldn't the writers come up with a scenario in which the hero couldn't kill the villain early? Couldn't they write a script that makes sense of the characters?
The lieutenant who kept arguing with Al, never followed logic either. There was no reason why he would have any doubt that there are terrorist in the building. If he is that dumb then why is he that high promoted?