Still my All-Time Favorite

Rating: 10/10 (5 April 2010)

I was born in the year this movie was filmed, which was 1987. It wasn't until exactly 10 years after it was released until I saw it. Oh, how I remember Christmas of '98, I was supposed to go to bed and let Santa do his thing, when I put in a VHS tape of something my cousin let me borrow earlier that night. It was Die Hard. It has to be some kind of coincidence that I had no idea it was even a Christmas movie..
Over a decade has gone by since I saw it for the first time and I have to say thats it's more than safe to decide that I will never substitute the #1 spot on my list with anything else! It's a little strange actually, seeing how the rest of my favorites consist a lot of horror (Alfred Hitchcock, John Carpenter, etc.) I love low-budget, under-the- radar cult classics and thats exactly why it surprises me when I think that my all-time favorite movie is an all-out action blockbuster! Hold back any pre-meditated opinions on the current Bruce Willis. This is what took him out of the TV and onto the big screen. He is young and full of energy here, unlike the roles we have seen him in for quite some time now. The use of the camera in this movie is excellent, as it is obvious at times that the style is heavily influenced by European films of earlier times. John McTiernan directed Predator the year before, and would later go on to such projects as The Hunt For Red October, Last Action Hero, and the third Die Hard movie. His style is quite interesting, and he definitely knows how to make a suspense thriller.
I'm not really a fan of people actually explaining the overall plot, as there are other ways for one to find out what the movie is about without having to read someone else's "review". With this movie, take it for what it is. You might watch this movie nowadays and think that you have for sure seen this be done before. But remember that this was the summer of 1988 when this movie hit theaters, and that although some movies have been strikingly similar, this was where it was done first and best!