DIE HARD REVIEW

*MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*

Despite it being 30 years since its release, Die Hard remains one of the best action films as it features a compelling and gripping narrative, memorable characters, a brave protagonist, an unforgettable villain and exhilarating action sequences.

It's Christmas time in L.A., and there's an employee party in progress on the 30th floor of the Nakatomi Corporation building. The revelry comes to a violent end when the partygoers are taken hostage by a group of terrorists headed by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), who plan to steal the 600 million dollars locked in Nakatomi's high-tech safe. In truth, Gruber and his henchmen are only pretending to be politically motivated to throw the authorities off track; also in truth, Gruber has no intention of allowing anyone to get out of the building alive. Meanwhile, New York cop John McClane (Bruce Willis) has come to L.A. to visit his estranged wife, Holly (Bonnie Bedelia), who happens to be one of the hostages. Disregarding the orders of the authorities surrounding the building, McClane, who fears nothing (except heights), takes on the villains, armed with one handgun and plenty of chutzpah.

One of the strongest aspects of Die Hard is the choice of actors and their impressive performances. At the time of Die Hard's release 30 years ago, Willis was largely known for his comedic role as Detective David Addison in the TV series, Moonlighting. When offered the role of McClane, Willis turned it down because of contractual commitments to Moonlighting. However, his co-star on Moonlighting, Cybil Shepherd, became pregnant, leading to filming on the series to be shut down for 11 weeks. This provided Willis with sufficient time to work on the action-packed feature. Prior to its release, people had their doubts about the choice of Willis, however, he beat their expectations. He brought charm to the role of McClane and also developed into a fierce, brave protagonist. He also has many memorable one-liners including, "Yippie ki-yay, motherfucker!". Because of his performance as McClane and after featuring in several action films, Willis has gone on to become known as an action star. Another impressive performance comes from Alan Rickman who makes his feature film debut as the evil Gruber, who is smart and cunning and determined to achieve his plan. Throughout the film, McClane and Gruber communicate through radio, however, the two don't meet until towards the end of the film. However, Gruber hides his identity by mimicking an American accent and pretending to be one of the hostages. This is one of the most memorable scenes in the film. Solid supporting roles come from Bedelia as McClane's wife and Reginald VelJohnson as Sergeant Al Powell, who is a friendly police officer who communicates with McClane via radio.

Unfortunately, while there have been a lot of action films that have been made since Die Hard, very few of them have been able to leave a lasting impression. The main reason why Die Hard succeeded was because it was different to any other action film that had been released before it. In the 1980s, the most popular action film was James Cameron's The Terminator starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Willis' McClane was written as your everyday man, who had a wife and children, and, unlike Schwarzenegger's Terminator, he had his weaknesses. He felt more real and, over the course of the film, he suffers a lot of injuries but this doesn't stop him. Die Hard is also an incredibly tense film as we didn't know who was going to survive and who wasn't. As we see in the beginning of the film, Gruber doesn't hold back from murdering innocent people to get his way. Now, a lot of action films fail to match the quality and, because they follow the formula made by Die Hard, they become very predictable and fail to leave a lasting impression. 

While Die Hard works as an action-packed feature, there has been some debate as to whether it's a Christmas film. In my opinion, while it's not your traditional Christmas film that's festive and cheerful, Die Hard makes many references to Christmas, including the Christmas party McClane attends at his wife's office. After disposing of one of Gruber's henchmen, the body is found in a lift wearing a jumper that reads 'Now, I have a machine gun, ho-ho-ho'. While Die Hard can be watched at any time of the year, it does work as your atypical Christmas film. 

After Die Hard's release, it surprisingly received mixed reviews from critics, however, now, thirty years later, a lot of people agreed that it's one of the greatest action films ever made. At the box office, it received over $140.8 million. Because of its success, four sequels were released between 1990 and 2013. Unfortunately, these sequels were average at best and struggled to match the quality of the original.

Thirty years on, Die Hard still remains one of the best action films ever released as it's thrilling, features exhilarating action sequences and impressive performances from Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman.

8/10