Die Hard (1988)

Wow…I was 2 when this came out.  We all know this movie, especially after the 5th one came out in past February.  However, I promised a fellow blogger Jonathan @ Life of Jonathan to check it out.  He landed on my site during my February romantic comedy marathon and wanted me to do more “manly” movies.  I wanted to make another marathon out of it but I think gradually reviewing Die Hard movies is already going to be fun enough.

Director: John McTiernan

Cast: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia, Reginald VelJohnson

NYPD office John McClane (Bruce Willis) fly down south to Los Angeles to spend Christmas with his wife, Holly Gennaro (Bonnie Bedelia) and his two kids.  Before going home, Holly arranged for him to go to Nakatomi Plaza where she works to attend the Christmas party.  Not long after he arrives, the office is penetrated and locked down by a group of terrorists lead by German leader Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman).  In desperation, he escapes and not only tries to save his wife from what could happen, but to also find out and stop whatever the terrorists plan to do.

Did you need me to give you a recap? I think most people have already seen this, but then I have to give others the benefit of the doubt, right? So there you go, a short plot summary.

This is one of the best action thrillers.  It is also  in #104 in the IMDB Top 250 movies. Okay, there are some cheesy lines here and there and there is one part I just realized when I was watching that cracked me and my boyfriend up which we had never noticed before.  The long hair blond guy tried to karate chop McClane in their final showdown.  I can’t find the image of it but it was a LOL moment for us! I had to give that part a mention.

Why is this one of the best action movies? Because its completely action-packed.  The intensity of this movie can get really high especially when McClane is running around bare foot and totally alone fighting a bunch of terrorists in an unknown building and trying to not get killed.  At the same time, there are a lot of smart ass comments that are meant to crack you up.  It provides this perfect balance to make it enjoyable and huge amount of action intensity.  We also have a great partnership from through the radio with McClane and the LAPD cop, Al.  They help each other out and they have some nice, funny and great moments happen. All the characters become so amusing to watch in this movie.

With that said, this movie is possibly the best in the Die Hard series because of its villain.  Alan Rickman is a fantastic actor and he does an outstanding job at being Hans Gruber, a criminal mastermind/terrorist.  He’s not crazy or does he act frantic. He’s smart and calm and we never can guess what he will do or say next. I was a huge fan of Alan Rickman even before seeing Die Hard, which I only saw a few years ago.  He is a really awesome actor not just as criminal masterminds but as Snape in Harry Potter and a tempted-to-cheat husband in Love Actually.

Great action movie, awesome cast, intense fight scenes, laughs here and there and great partnership formed and an awesomely evil villain, oh right and Bruce Willis in one of his most awesome movies and it makes me love Die Hard! By the way, did you realize that Bruce Willis ran REALLY fast across one of the scenes.  Never seen him do that before in other movies! Even more awesome!

Let the Die Hard reviews start 🙂

Which is your favorite action movie? Do you like Die Hard? Why do you like it? Maybe its for the same reasons or different ones?