A Genuine Fake.

Rating: 6/10 (14 October 2005)

About twenty-five years ago it came to light that Elmyr de Hory had been painting fake Rembrandts and Matisses and Monets and whatnot. The fakes were bought by expert collectors and some of them hung in famous galleries. The fakes were so good that they became works of art in themselves, glowing with a technical mastery of the medium, lacking only originality.
That's kind of what this movie is like. I don't believe there's an original thought in the whole hour and a half of it, but what is shown on screen is beautifully executed -- direction, script, performances, photography, production design.
Everything's derivative. Nothing will surprise you. Even the score is completely ripped off. I mean in its entirety -- Beethoven's Choral Symphony. Nothing could be more obscene than seeing the faces of the murdering thieves light up as the vault door swings open to reveal millions of dollars, while Schiller's Ode to Joy swells up on the score.
The whole thing is as shiny and sterile as Nakatomi Plaza, and man that is one repugnant space. Towering blocks of geometrically perfect steel and glass, with three probably real trees in the drivearound, although they would have fit the general tone of the movie if they'd been plastic. The human scale is totally lost. Imagine a supersized Leggo community. Imagine the ants who crawl into those monstrous edifice wrecks every morning, pausing before the entrance, staring up at the steel column disappearing into the clouds, and moaning aloud, "Oh, my God, not another day of THIS."
Bruce Willis is very good as the New York cop who is the fly in gangleader Alan Rickman's ointment. This is a typical action hero role but Willis brings a comic element to it that, say, Schwarzenegger, Stallone, or Eastwood simply could not. Oh, the others could make wisecracks under stress just as well as Willis, but they couldn't do his hysterically shocked and frightened face when some contretemps comes his way. He looks really scared, his eyeballs practically popping out. Have you ever seen Stallone look scared? No, you haven't. Don't try to kid the kid.
Here's how you can tell the difference between the three main heroes of the 1980s action movies. Bruce Willis gets bloody and out of breath. Stallone gets bloody but is never out of breath. Schwarzenegger is never either bloody or breathless. That'll be ten cents.
I didn't care too much for Rickman's villain. With that aquiline nose and that mouth full of big white choppers he seemed altogether too slimy. When I first saw this movie, I thought this was the extent of his range. But I was wrong. I've since seen him in half a dozen other varied roles and he has a lot of talent.
It's curious to see Hollywood movies flailing about in search of an agreed-upon villain since the collapse of the USSR. I keep wondering whom they'll turn up next. The stock heavies have been Germans (WWII) and Russians (the Cold War). Lately, of course, they've been "camel jockeys", to use the current pejorative. "Die Hard" opts for the tried and true -- Germans, one of whom has a Russian accent. (Alexander Gudonov, a failed defected ballet dancer, neat guy, who died of drink at an early age.) The action is very well choreographed. Outstanding is the scene in which the roof explodes just as Willis jumps out of a window with a fire hose tied around his waist. He jerks to a stop when the fire hose runs out, smashes through an office window, and the metal roll that contained the hose falls past the broken window and -- well, and so on.
There's action, comedy, romance, and all the rest, done to a turn. If you want to be entertained undemandingly for a while, this should do the job.