Yes, an action movie can be a great movie

Rating: 9/10 (11 February 2007)

I happily read comments about Die Hard, talking about this movie as the best action film ever made (or so). And I say "happily" because for too much time I had to stand these people who just laughed when I told them that Die Hard was my favorite movie. These people who can't understand that an action movie can be a great movie. But it seems that Die Hard had "gained quality" due to the distance that give past time. And time begins to fit things where they have to be.
Many people aren't able to make the difference, but Die Hard is not another action movie. I was 8 years old when it released, and at least 3 things made me pay attention to that poster in the hall of my town's theater: first was the location for that action movie, a building (maybe nowadays scripts are increasingly complicated, but then it was, at least, quite original). Second, its main performer, Bruce Willis, then a comedy actor, famous for his role of David Addison in TV series Moonlighting. And then, finally, was the original title, in Spanish at least, "La Jungla de Cristal", which you could translate in English as "The Glass Jungle", referring to the Nakatomi building. So, by the location, the actor and the title, I could figure out that it was not the typical action movie. That it was not, for example, Schwarzenegger's Red Heat, the other action movie that was programmed that night of 1988 in that theater. But we finally decided (well, not me, my brother and cousins, I was only a child) to watch Danko's adventures, so I lost the opportunity to see John McClane in a cinema screen. I never forgave myself for this...
I won't talk about its both original and classical screenplay, its actors' work, its perfect rhythm, because I read Madreviewer and (s)he explains it all better in English. But, as Madreviewer says, one important thing is that McClane doesn't beat each terrorist easily, as if he was a superhero. They're only twelve (not hundreds, like other movies make us believe), but the action scenes are cleverly distributed: is not McClane against everybody in open field like a war. It's more like a cold war, using his brains to beat them one by one. But it don't seem easy. It's just like one of these video games where you have to pick up every weapon you find when you defeat a villain, to store and to use them at the right time, because you start the game with just a Beretta gun. And, of course, you have to use the map, to guide yourself along the building, going up and down by the stairs or the lift, hiding from the terrorists or facing them when necessary.
So, these of you who may think that an action film can't be a great film, that a blockbuster movie can't be a serious movie, that Bruce Willis is Schwarzenegger-like, dare to remove those topics from your mind and try to watch the best action film ever made!