Die Hard

For this month, I will do a review on a great series of action movies. Since I had done the “Lethal Weapon” series back in July, I think it would be appropriate to look at another great action series, “Die Hard.” Today let’s kick it off with the first film released in 1988, “Die Hard.”

This film was directed by the great John McTiernan, and it becomes more like one of the classic action movies of the 80s, the epitome of the word “action.” Dave Kehr of the Chicago Tribune wrote, “From its trailer, ``Die Hard`` looks like a typical action movie of the `80s: a sweaty, bare-chested, all-American hero battles swarthy, heavily accented terrorist villains, accompanied by lots of high-tech explosions, vast sheets of breaking glass and enough sophisticated weaponry to account for the Pentagon`s budget overrun.” He also called this film, “Sleekly engineered, impeccably staged and shrewdly dosed with humor and sentiment, ``Die Hard`` has everything but a personality.”

You could say that this movie is a beast of its own, and it was a giant success the summer it was released. Jeb Stuart and Steven E. De Souza handled the screenplay, and they blended this movie in with other classic action movies. Think of it as a scientific experiment, where it combined films from “Alien” to “Robocop,” and they were all put together very nicely.

Now the story takes place on Christmas Eve and inside the giant Japanese building of the Nakatomi Corporation, the workers are having their party. Faster than you ask “where is the action,” a group of German terrorists barge in the building and go up to the 30^th floor. They hold the guests hostage as they try to crack the code of seven electronic devices that holds up to $670 million in bearer bonds in a safe.

Luckily, New York policeman John McClane, played by one of the greatest action stars ever, Bruce Willis, has just flown in to spend the holidays with his two children and wife Holly, played by Bonnie Bedelia, who he has a rocky relationship with. As the FBI is helpless outside because they cannot find a way in, it is up to McClane to fight the Germans inside the Plaza. He doesn’t have any shoes on, he damages his foot really bad, and he is shirtless in the last third of the movie. Willis had to work out on the days that he had to be shirtless. McClane swings through elevator shafts, crawls up the ducts and sneaks around the rooftops to kill the Germans off one by one.

McTiernan was fresh off of making another action movie that he will forever be known for, “Predator,” when he made this movie. As he was always well-known for, he puts together the action very well, uses Jackson DeGovia set of the building very well, which in it of itself, it also becomes a character. This needs a sense of scale which, since its wildly uneven to its actual content, can’t help but impress.

I’m not saying that McTiernan completely ignored his actors. Willis is still making a transition from TV to film in this role, but he still does a really good job in this film. He was not the first person to be considered for the role of McClane. He was way down the line, but he was selected and turned this into one of his famous roles that everyone will remember for. The actor that steals the show, much like how Nicholson stole the show in Tim Burton’s “Batman,” is Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber. Rickman made his film debut in this role, since he is well-known for his British stage performances. Gruber is one of the best villains in any action movie. Even Kehr states, “Small, slinky and well-spoken, Rickman`s Hans Gruber has the silkiness of Claude Rains and the smiling dementia of ``Gilda`s`` George Macready.”

Still, the film’s subtext made it a success, though it’s also really disturbing. Just like with the “Rambo” movies, “Die Hard,” despite that it operates with more difficulty and detail, is driven by almost buried, blind anger.

This anger embodied by McClane is focused instead toward feminists (Holly left him to focus more on her job), yuppies (Hart Bochner appears as Harry Ellis, who is heavily addicted to cocaine snorting), the media (William Atherton as Richard Thornburg, a TV reporter much like the one in “Manhunter” and “Red Dragon”) authority in general (the FBI and L.A. officers are shown as complete idiots), and every single foreigner, more on the Japanese and Germans. Also, if you were a fan of the TGIF sitcom, “Family Matters,” Reginald VelJohnson, who played Carl Winslow on that show, appears in here as Sgt. Al Powell, who is helped by McClane.

Even though you could easily shake off the camp appeal of “Rambo,” “Die Hard” is not a film that you will be able to shake off. Kehr said, “It`s Morton Downey Jr. on a big budget-a piece of entertainment, but also a symptom.”

Overall, I rate this film with a solid 10. It’s one of the greatest action movies of all time. I could probably consider this one of my favorites. If you haven’t seen it, go out, rent it, buy it, watch it on TV or Netflix, but you have to watch this.

Well, now I have to take time off until next Friday since I overworked myself last month by doing reviews every single day. I haven’t done that before, but I didn’t know it would be this tiring. Before I burn myself out, I will prepare myself to review “Die Hard 2” next week. Yippie-kai-yay (you fill in the rest, this blog will be swear free).