A monumental film

Rating: 10/10 (25 February 2006)

Bruce Willis stars as John McClane, a New York cop who flies out to Los Angeles to meet with his estranged wife at a Christms party in an LA Highrise that belongs to a wealthy company for which his wife works. Unknown to the guests, a group of terrorists headed by Alan Rickman takes everyone hostage, except McClane who manages to sneak by. Left with only his pistol, brains, and brawn McClane starts to give the bad guys hell.
US action pictures were never the same after this film came out in 1988 and in watching it you can easily see why. Placed in one building over one night with one hero, who could have imagined such an exciting movie? Other 80s action films, while many of them are classics, never quite managed to accomplish what Die hard did so well. It is not the relentless action nor the characterization, but both of them combined. McClane is introduced like any other cop would be and not like some big guy who is obviously going to kick ass like say Schwarzenegger was shown in Commando. This film put a real human side to its hero - he's tough as nails, but not invincible. He relies on his brains and his brawn. He winces in pain, but pushes on. And of course he snaps wise-cracks and quotable lines: I mean who can truly forget "yippy-kah-yay, motherf***er" after seeing this movie even once?
And it is not just the hero, but the villains he combats as well. They have their unlikable side and are obviously meant to be the bad guys, but they have their brains, their brawn, and of course their own weaknesses. Scripters Jeb Stuart and Steven de Souza must have gone about describing the villains pretty carefully in their screenplay and they have created a memorable bunch little army that is not your typical cardboard cut out set of villains. They range from a hacker who can't fight if his life depended on it to the mountainous assault rifle packing Karl who makes John McClane's day especially bad. Interestingly, Karl's seemingly endless fury isn't just an excuse to have a "real tough ass" bad guy, but it is characterized and introduced in of itself.
Also, the music is very well developed. Beethoven's 9th is the backdrop for the score and it is interesting to see how it was put into the story in a both diagetic and a non-diagetic level. Added to that, they even put a Christmas twist to it.
Finally, when you consider the fact that this one movie not only spawned an overall great trilogy, but a whole little sub-genre of "Die Hard on a..." makes this a great film all around. 10/10
Rated R: violence and profanity