A Classic

Rating: Null/10 (8 October 2007)

Die Hard is the film that re-wrote the action genre, sparked countless copycat flicks (all of them inferior) and signalled the beginning of the slow, terminal decline of the careers of Messrs Schwarzenegger and Stallone (and the somewhat faster dive into obscurity of the likes of van Damme, Dudikoff, etc). The film holds up surprisingly well, despite all those copies. It should be showing its age, but it doesn't, and the subtext of average working joe threatened by  and fighting back against  faceless multinational corporations (legal or otherwise) is still relevant today. Looking through the principal players, the fact that neither the director, the writer or the star has since achieved such giddy heights suggests that this film was one of those fortunate accidents: everything clicked, and we were somehow given a classic in a genre that throws up precious few. This is the kind of film that's easy to dip into  but nearly impossible to tear yourself away from once you have.