Great action, well directed, tense and slick action thriller with enjoyable performances and intelligent social subtext (spoilers)

Rating: Null/10 (12 July 2007)

I first saw Die Hard in the late 1980's and have owned it on various formats down the years and will watch it now and again. One of the main reasons I enjoy it so is because of the iconic place it holds within the action genre. At the time it came out we were mostly served up pumped-up action heroes who happily take on entire armies and win in battles that are mostly a simple matter of good versus evil, where good is US and evil is them (whoever them happened to be at that time). Die Hard manages to be more than that by starting out with a "normal" guy as our hero. Now I won't pretend that McClane is not an action hero who does extraordinary things but he seems accessible. I particularly like the fact that his first reaction is to run, to call for help form others and that he only faces the terrorists when he has to, rather than going all Rambo on us.
If this approach provides a grounding, the concept also brings the action into a slightly more real environment. The action is more or less confined to the tower and the bad guys limited rather than being a constantly flowing army of stuntmen. Director McTiernan uses the location really well, injecting tension and a sense of claustrophobia that works really well. The action is enjoyable and offers a lesson that modern CGI-heavy action movies can learn from  if you rely totally on technology then you'll date quickly, if you make the effects serve the action and narrative then you'll be standing for years. As a result the action in Die Hard feels no less slick or exciting for being almost twenty years old.
Although this is the most important part of the film to get right, I always appreciated the clever subtexts in the narrative. Filmed in the 1980's, the film is a clever attack on yuppie values in contrast with the blue-collar "man's man" type. In this way the narrative can be viewed as those seeking more and more wealth getting in the way of those who just want to be with their families. The most obvious attack on the business culture is the aligning of the terrorists and the corporation. Hans and Takagi share taste in suits, education, knowledge and even share the same opening lines ("ladies & gentlemen"); it is not a stretch to see the film suggesting that Takagi may have also shared some of Hans' ruthlessness in his rise to the top. This is also evident from the very start  John does not lose his wife to Hans, he has already lost her to the corporation as she drops his name and had moved away. Indeed such is the films paralleling of these two threats to McClane, that he only rescues Holly from Hans by getting the watch off her wrist  the watch that was specifically mentioned at the start of the film as a gift from the company.
Ellis sees the connection being made even more obvious as he himself suggests little difference between himself and Hans, apart from the gun and fountain pen aspect. Of course with both businessmen being connected to the terrorists in this way, they must also share their fate, and do. Although it has lumbered the film series with a rather poor catchphrase, the discussion of westerns again confirms the contrast between "man's man" and "new man"  a connection further made by having McClane in his vest, an outfit more befitting a blue collar worker who has his values in the USA frontier rather than the cut-throat world of foreign business. This distain for bureaucracy is also seen in the redemption of Al. Stuck outside the action in the building (handicapped by incompetence) but also desk-bound due to shooting a kid. At the end of the movie he is redeemed by killing Karl in a "quick-draw" style shoot out, freeing him from his desk and restoring his manhood. Again the split between bureaucracy and real workers and again the use of wild-west symbolism.
The cast respond to the strong script and direction by turning in roundly good performances. Willis has not really been better (even in the same character) and his action twist on his Moonlighting character was the making of him. It is Rickman that dominates the film though; like in Robin Hood, he is a delightful sneering bad guy who has great lines and great presence. The support cast is good below them with Bedelia avoiding being just a damsel in distress; VelJohnson a solid "buddy"; Godunov is a real physical threat  even if a few of the other terrorists barely make an impression on the memory. Gleason, Atherton, White and Davi all give a good show as well.
Rightly an iconic action movie then. The action has stood up really well and is delivered within a story that is tense and well paced. The performances suit the material and, if you want it, there is a clever and engaging subtext running across the whole film. I find it hard to fault and you can see why it has had the influence it has had on the action genre over the last twenty years.