Greatest Cop Action Movie Ever

Rating: 10/10 (7 February 2013)

Die Hard is a non stop thrill ride from beginning to end. That's not what makes this movie so special though. It's the story, the acting and the characters.
NYPD Officer John McClane (played to hard boiled perfection by Bruce Willis) is the walking definition of a hero: a regular guy who gets thrown into a dire situation and reacts well to it. McClane has flown to LA to see his estranged wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) for Christmas, and meets her at the building where she works, at her company's Christmas party. They waste no time in getting into yet another spat, when suddenly a group of terrorists seizes the building..and everyone on the 30th floor. At least it seems like terrorists at first (we find out that these "terrorists" in fact have something else in mind). McClane slips away unnoticed by the supposed terrorists, with his gun (if not his shoes..and yes, he regrets that one later), and proceeds to wreak havoc on the terrorists, led by Hans Gruber (played by Alan Rickman in a performance that's nothing short of superb), and his right arm Karl, played by a really angry-looking Alexander Godunov. When McClane isn't taking the bad guys out one at a time, wriggling around in air vents and the elevator shaft, he has to deal with an idiotic deputy police chief (a classic illustration of the Peter principle), a couple of equally clueless FBI agents, and a conniving co worker of Holly's who tries to turn McClane into Gruber by telling him who he really is (up to that point Gruber didn't know his name). There's also an ambitious dirt bag of a TV news reporter played by William Atherton, who ends up giving Holly's identity out over the air.
Die Hard is a rarity among action flicks in that the action is actually plausible (unlike the various sequels). The characters are believable too (yes, even that moron of a deputy police chief)..and interesting. This more than keeps things going during the short breaks in the action. All this makes Die Hard the best movie of its genre ever made.