{"id":1631,"date":"2008-12-05T05:40:45","date_gmt":"2008-12-05T12:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=1631"},"modified":"2008-12-05T09:50:20","modified_gmt":"2008-12-05T16:50:20","slug":"die-hard-john-mctiernan-1988-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=1631","title":{"rendered":"Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1988): USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Byron Potau<\/a>. Viewed on DVD.<\/p>\n

\"\"With so many inferior sequels dragging it through the gutter it is easy to forget how much fun the original Die Hard<\/a><\/em> was.\u00a0 Before Rollerball and The Thomas Crown Affair remake director John McTiernan was one of the best at serving up delectable action packed cinema that managed to satisfy our hunger for heart stopping action without sacrificing either character or story, while still keeping a foot on believability.\u00a0 Sure it is a bit farfetched, but not so much as to elicit too much of an \u201cOh come on!\u201d<\/p>\n

N.Y.P.D cop John McClane (Bruce Willis) flies out to Los Angeles to join his wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) and kids for Christmas.\u00a0 He has not seen either of them for six months since his wife left for L.A. for a job opportunity that has panned out quite well for her.\u00a0 So John meets up with her at her high rise office building where the company\u2019s Christmas Party is taking place.\u00a0 Before they can reconcile a group of thieves posing as terrorists seize the building looking to steal six hundred million in the building\u2019s vault.\u00a0 John manages to elude the thieves, but is without his shoes.\u00a0 It is one against twelve as McClane attempts to foil the thieves plans and save the hostages, all while circumventing the ineptness of the L.A.P.D. and the F.B.I.<\/p>\n

The action is consistent and thrilling, but what makes this a great action film is its attention to character.\u00a0 Director John McTiernan is not afraid to spend a little time letting us get to know the characters a little so we can care about them when stuff starts happening to them.\u00a0 Though he has too many one liners like \u201cWelcome to the party pal!\u201d or \u201cNow I know what a T.V. dinner feels like,\u201d Bruce Willis does a good job with John McClane.\u00a0 However it is Alan Rickman\u2019s stellar performance as lead bad guy Hans Gruber that drives the film.\u00a0 Rickman gets to speak German, fake an English accent, and basically chew scenery while executing hostages, barking orders, and battling McClane all while staying relatively cool and collected.\u00a0 Even rooting against Gruber you cannot help but like him a little bit.\u00a0 There are also many smaller characters to enjoy as well as the films tongue in cheek sense of humor as you watch one of the classic action films of the eighties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Byron Potau. Viewed on DVD. With so many inferior sequels dragging it through the gutter it is easy to forget how much fun the original Die Hard was.\u00a0 Before Rollerball and The Thomas Crown Affair remake director John McTiernan was one of the best at serving up delectable action packed cinema that managed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dvd","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1631\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}