Die Hard

Die Hard; action, USA, 1988; D: John McTiernan, S: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia, Alexandar Godunov,  Reginald VelJohnson, Paul Gleason, William Atherton

Los Angeles during Christmas. The New York cop John McClane comes to town to visit his wife Holly, but the two of them enter an argument in her work place, the large office building called Nakatomi Plaza, and separate. Just then a gang of terrorists led by the German Hans Gruber invade the building and seal it off, taking everyone in it as hostages. They kill the boss, Mr. Takagi, and go on to disable the vault and steal millions of dollars in bearer bonds. John is able to hide and start a guerrilla-like fight against the terrorist, contacting the police, but the only one who trusts him is sergeant Al Powell. Hans figures Holly is John's wife and uses her to blackmail John. Just as the terrorist are set to run away with the money, John is able to kill them and save his wife.

Films of the action genre were never highly respected by film critics and their macho protagonists would often finish their careers as soon as they would become older. Although many dispute such films as "The Terminator" and "Die Hard", they are actually surprisingly good and least to deserve such treatment among the action films. A timeless classic, faultlessly elegant and suitable for endless repeatable viewings, "Die Hard"—the first and only excellent part of the series—is a genius adventure rush, surprisingly simple and amusing in introducing the story about the hero that saves the day from the bad guys, differing a lot from the usual stupid action films that don't offer anything except mindless action. Bruce Willis probably gave the role of a lifetime as the main protagonist. The highlights are humorous situations: John kills a terrorist and gets his gun, writes "Now I have a machine gun! Ho, ho" on the latter's shirt, and lowers him down to his evil boss Hans, who is surprised somebody would dare to meddle with his plans. 

In another scene Hans is warning his henchmen to be quiet, but then John's voice contacts him via the loud speaker, teasing him that he should write his top secret terrorist plan on the blackboard so that there won't be any confusion. But the most genius scene is the one in which the hero accidentally stumbles upon the main bad guy Hans in the corridor who quickly reacts and introduces himself as one of the hostages, figuring John knows only his voice—not how he looks like. It is a movie full of energy and clever ideas, acting like a chess game between the two sides; the good and the bad, and even adding a little anti-establishment touch since all the police forces prove to be incompetent while the "little man" John does all the things right. It also has deeper layers in its hidden theme of a 'family vs. career' thought experiment—John represents conservative family values, while his wife Holly chose career and abandoned him for the job, but then becomes a hostage in the clutches of corporate neoliberalism, where the employees have no lives of their own, but are subordinate to their company. John fights for his wife, and symbolically saves her from her career values, to have her return back to him and their family values. Although the ending is a little bit overstretched and stiff, "Die Hard" is such an enjoyable film that it will even override those viewers that completely despise the action genre, achieveing that desired universal appeal.

Grade:+++