As you can tell from the title I will be reviewing all five films in the Die Hard franchise. So having said that, I will be reviewing the first and best entry in the franchise 'Die Hard' released in 1988. Die Hard is a film that not only redefined the action genre, labelled as the action movie and also made Bruce Willis a household name. But is the film worth being labelled all this? well yes it does and in this review, I'll be talking about the elements I think make this film a worthwhile watch.
The film has a simple narrative of a cop based in New York goes to LA to visit his family for Christmas, He stops at a building where his wife works to take her home, the building is holding an office party and has to wait till it over, while a band of crooks take over the building while the cop has to stop them. What makes this narrative so memorable is that it is not too complicated like some of the action movies at that time, and allows for some great character moments between characters.
The cast of the film has many names such as Bruce Willis who plays legendary action hero John Mclane, Bonnie Bedelia as his wife Holly, Reginald VelJohnson as Sgt. Powell, William Atherton as the reporter Richard Thornburg and the late Alan Rickman as legendary villain Hans Gruber. The film's director is John McTiernan who is known for directing other famous films such as Predator and Last Action Hero. McTiernan was a good choice to direct this as he understands the narrative and there are some great character and action moments in the story as a result of this. In my opinion, he also is the best director in the franchise as he came back to do the second best film in my opinion which was Die Hard with a Vengence.
Now onto the good parts of this film, the relationship between John and Holly is well done as you understand where their marital status is and how the relationship changes over the course of the movie. The antagonist is really good as he acts as both an emotional and physical threat to the protagonist as his wife is one of the many hostages he has taken.
Another good part of the movie is the comedy, Bruce Willis used to be in comedy before he did Die Hard and his experience shows that as there scenes in the movie of him talking to himself saying 'how did this happen?' and 'why am I doing this?' which makes him not too funny and not too serious at the same time as he realises how the whole situation he is in is a bit goofy.
However, as much as I like this movie there is a few nitpicks that are fairly visible. One of these being the hostages. The problem I have with the hostages is that there just there for plot reasons and that's it, an example of this is one hostage named Ellis who tries to make a deal with the crooks but then gets shot as a result of his stupidity. Another is the Limo driver as although he is very funny in all the scenes he's in, that's his only purpose throughout the movie and does one heroic deed near the film's climax.
But overall, Die Hard is an entertaining action movie with a simple narrative, great character moments, great action scenes and Bruce Willis making fun of how the plot is a bit goofy.
I would give Die Hard a 9/10 for great character and action scenes, a simple and understandable narrative behind it and a great villain.
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