Welcome To The Party, Pal!

Rating: 8/10 (7 December 2002)

Die Hard was a pivotal film in action circles. Reaching back to 1974's The Taking Of Pelham 1-2-3 for its basic approach, it deliberately shied away from the supremely confident heroes of the Rambo and Schwarzenegger genres and instead focused on a hero who is as scared as the hostages he is trying to rescue. It also got Bruce Willis' film career really flying after the disappointment of Hudson Hawk and the end of the TV series Moonlighting, and also introduced the general public to Alan Rickman.
Willis is a New York cop, John McClane, visiting his estranged wife, Holly Gennaro, in LA for a Christmas party at her place of employment, a high-technology firm. The setting proves important, for the party is crashed by a gang of German terrorists led by an infamous killer named Hans Gruber. Gruber has a carefully planned scheme for dealing with the inevitable police/FBI intervention, except his well-wrought plan may blow up thanks to the escape of John McClane.
In addition to the action, the film's theme is the radio interplay between McClane and an LA cop, Al Powell, who is his only link to the outside - which will prove vital as McClane figures out Gruber's real plan and has to dodge both terrorists and pigheaded FBI cowboys to save the hostages.