both exciting and funny

Rating: 8/10 (20 December 2009)

An action film pumped up with energy and punch, and one that manages to be both exciting and funny. It's basically the old unmistakable formula of the ordinary man going against the odds, exquisitely done with panache, fully equipped with smart-ass wisecracks and amusingly induced with irony towards the gung-ho Americanism that has always been so prevalent in Hollywood films of this genre.
Willis' John Mc Lane is the perfect cynical hero and Rickman's Hans Gruber is the quintessential European villain.
The movie established a new era in the action genre which pretty much says it all.