You are a policeman. There are rules for policemen

Rating: 9/10 (27 August 2001)

The top eight action flicks of the eighties: "The Terminator", "First Blood", "Aliens", "Robocop", "the Predator", "Lethal Weapon 1 & 2"- and "Die Hard". Probably the least action-packed of the titles mentioned above, but I think it's the best of them! Always a pleasure to watch (done it already like 30 times or so) because it just clicks on every level: the direction is all good, the setting is original and well used (another bow to the director), the hero is physically limited (a little love handle around the stomach, maybe?) and vulnerable (and not just physically- the moment where McClane talks to Powell about delivering a message to his wife IS touching) and the villains are terrific, by the way there are 13 of them, not 12!
If you view one of the early trailers of "Die Hard" you see that the movie was marketed like just another "reaganish"-action yarn; "all-action, with an all-American hero kicking and especially shooting the s**t out of about a thousand foreign baddies in the name of apple pie and family values". Surprising is that even when this movie WAS done in times like those, it has been done in a different tone, the outcome being something like a "thinking man's action yarn" with a slow pace (that still grows up into a climax), a nasty sense of violence and even a partial touch of realism. Probably this was because Ahnuld stepped out of the project and they had to make a brand new mold for Willis (who prevents Rickman from stealing the show with "Hans Gruber" by putting a little dark humor to John McClane, and giving him some of the coolest one-liners I've ever heard!) Whatever the reason, the gambling paid off and the outcome was a movie that doesn't seem to age off...
The sequels are both above par, but still clearly below the original DIE HARD.