Die Hard - Film Review
Die Hard is directed by John McTiernan and stars Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia, Reginald VelJohnson, Paul Gleason, and based off the novel Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp.
Plot
John McClane (Bruce Willis), an NYPD cop, tries to save his wife Holly Gennaro (Bonnie Bedelia) and several others that were taken hostage by German terrorist Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) during a Christmas party at the Nakatomi Plaza in Los Angeles.
Review
Before I actually get into the review, I wanna go into a little history.
In 1966 Roderick Thorp published his novel The Detective, and two years later it was adapted into a movie of the same name starring Frank Sinatra.
In 1975, Thorp saw the film The Towering Inferno, and in the year 1979 Thorp published his novel Nothing Lasts Forever to be made into a movie starring Frank Sinatra. When Sinatra declined, it was passed on to actors like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone before being passed down to Bruce Willis.
And in 1988, Die Hard was released. With some changes, such as Joe Leland becomes John McClane and is much older, it's rather faithful to the book. I've not read the book myself, but it sounds interesting.
Now onto the review:
There are a lot of Christmas movies I like, Elf, the first two Home Alone movies, Christmas Vacation and many others, but none of them beat Die Hard.
I mean, what can I say about this movie that hasn't already been said? It's literally the best Christmas movie ever!
John McClane should be the Christmas mascot instead of Santa Claus and Hans Gruber should be the Chrismas villain instead of Krampus.
I'm not going into the plot too much, despite having a plot section on here, because everyone has seen this movie so I'll just list some of my favorite parts.
The part where John McClane is crawling through the air vent. Just awesome. I've seen that shot made into Christmas ornaments.
The scene where Argyle (De'voreaux White) is in the limo in the parking garage and sees one of the terrorist posing as an ambulance driver and then rams his limo into it. One of my favorites.
I love the part where John tries to get the police to come to Nakatomi Plaza and the woman says that this line is reserved for emergencies only and he asks if it sounds like he's ordering a pizza.
This scene.
There's a lot more awesome scenes in here and I'm procrastinating with this so I'm gonna talk about the cast and then wrap this review up.
Bruce Willis is one of the most awesome action stars ever as John McClane. He's awsome, funny, cool, laid-back, cocky and many others. I think John McClane and Butch from Pulp Fiction are my favorite Bruce Willis roles. BTW, I've not seen Unbreakable, I've not seen The Fifth Element and I've only seen parts of The Sixth Sense.
Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber is one of my favorite movie villains ever, to me he is up there with Darth Vader and Heath Ledger's Joker.
He's smart, he knows every single thing about Nakatomi Plaza, he's intimidating, he has probably the best henchmen in film history, although they all die, but they do last quite a while. He can pretty much talk his way out of almost any situation (except the scene where he runs into John McClane). And he's actually likable too. I really can't think of many other likable terrorists in movies except for V in V for Vendetta, which I reviewed last month, although there are debates over whether or not V is a terrorist or a freedom fighter.
This is also one of my favorite Alan Rickman roles alongside some of his other performances as Snape from the Harry Potter series and Voice of God from Dogma.
Bonnie Bedelia is good as Holly Gennero, John's wife. I wouldn't say there's a whole lot to her character wise, but she has an important part in Hans' death.
I liked Reginald VelJohnson as Al Powell, a character taken directly from the book, although older. He seems like a typical cop when he first appears as just a typical cop, but he actually turns out to be important to the plot later.
He helps John McClane as the terrorists are attacking the Plaza and even has regret for something he did on duty, he accidentally shot a kid. Hope that kid was Steve Urkel.
In the Bojack Horseman Christmas special, Todd brings up how he thinks that Al Powell and Carl Winslow from Family Matters are actually the same character.
Paul Gleason is good as Dwayne, a very stubborn cop. I wouldn't say there's much to him, except he's very stubborn, stern, and doubts Al's statements that John is an ally.
Well, I'm gonna wrap it up here. All in all, Die Hard is the greatest Christmas movie ever. If you don't think so, you are wrong.
This is one of the best action films ever and one of my favorite films ever.
Come back tomorrow for a review of Die Hard 2: Die Harder.
10/10
Previous review - Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Next review - Die Hard 2: Die Harder
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