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Die Hard

Die Hard

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Awesome!
Review: This movie is awesome for many reasons, it has some cool explosions, awesome fist fights, and all the gun action you could ever want. The film is about a New York Detective, John McClane (played by Bruce Willis), comeing to L.A. to visit his wife, and arives on Christmas Eve to spend christmas with her and his two kids, she has been working in L.A. for a year now. McClane's wife, Holly (Bonnie Bedelia), workes for the Nacotomy corporation, shewas transfered to L.A., McClane stayed in N.Y. because he thought Holly would come back so he was intrested in packing up. At the L.A International Airport, John is picked up by a limo driver named Argyle. Argyle drives John to the building where Holly works the Nocotomi Plaza. Arglye says he'll wait for John and Holly to come and he'll drive them home then. In the building a Christmas party is taking place on the 30th floor, it is being hosted by the boss of this spacefic part of the Nacitome corporation. McClane and his wife holly are reunited, but they end up haveing a fight. Later John feel like a jerk for haveing the fight with holly. Soon 13 terrorists enter the building, they are led by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), and his right hand man Karl. The terrorists take over the 30th floor, seal all the entrences shut. John however manages to get away unseen, because the terrorists didn't know John was going to be there. Eventually ( and hour into the movie) John manages to contact the LAPD, well actually at first only a cop with a deck job named Al. Soon a nosy reporter and his crew, who will do anything to get the story is getting in the way, and the FBI are involved. The film has two awesome explotions, one on top of the building taking two helicopters with it. Alan Rickman dose a great job of being the bad guy. The flim has great dialoge. But the crowning a chivement of the film is it's action scene after anouther. The flim is like the 1974 disastor film classic, "The Towering Inferno", except it has terrorists traping people in the buildinging istead of an seemingly unstopable fire. Highly recommended.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: 40 Stories Of High Rise Tension
Review: DIE HARD remains one of the best action films of the last twenty years because, unlike so many of the Schwarzenneger, Stallone, and Segal pics, this film actually has a great deal of tension, suspense, and even terror. It has, of course, the requisite violence and blooshed, but at no time does it ever succumb to the kind of gratuitous hyper-violence we've grown accustomed to in the testosterone action genre.

Bruce Willis became a star here as New York cop John McClane, out on Christmas sabbatical to see his wife (Bonnie Bedelia), from whom he has been estranged for six months. Clearly, they are at odds with one another, what with Willis' line of work and Bedelia's need for independence, being as she is an executive at the Nakatomi Plaza in West L.A., where they reunite. Willis berates himself for not being more sympathetic to Bedelia's desires, and waits in her office while the Nakatomi Christmas party goes on.

But when a heavily armed band of terrorists, led by a suave German (Alan Rickman), seize the building and everyone at the party for the purposes of stealing the $640 million in negotiable bearer bonds from the company's computer-controlled vault, Willis is forced into a life-or-death situation. Escaping detection, he finds and kills Rickman's associates one by one, all the while as the LAPD and the FBI mistake him for one of the terrorists. The vault's computer codes are broken and Rickman gets his hands on the money. But eventually, Willis catches up with him and, in a showdonw that pays homage to the 1952 western classic HIGH NOON, shoots and kills Rickman and saves Bedelia.

I have only ever had one major complaint with DIE HARD, and it has nothing to do with the violence or the language (though the 'R' rating is obviously there for a reason). In trying to make Willis THE hero of the piece, the screenplay by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. DeSouza (based on Roderick Thorp's 1979 book "Nothing Lasts Forever") makes the LAPD captain (Paul Gleason) into an incompetent, trigger-happy buffoon and the FBI men, led by Robert Davi, into a gang of trigger-happy psychopaths who seem far worse than Rickman's companions. Aside from slowing the film down to an extent, these depictions of law enforcement are rather distasteful and grossly inaccurate.

That complaint aside, however, DIE HARD is very skillfully directed by John McTiernan, who doesn't stint with the suspense and keeps things moving in this 132 minute-long film. Willis is at his best here, as is Bedelia, who makes for a far better than average heroine. VelJohnson's performance is also quite commendable.

Finally, no action film can expect to be truly memorable unless the villain is every bit the match for the hero. Few action films understand this, resulting in villains who are basically straw dummies. Not so with Rickman, whose performance as Hans Gruber makes for one of the most compelling and crafty villains the cinema has ever had.

Boosted by Richard Edlund's great special effects work and a high-tension orchestral score by Michael Kamen (plus an uncredited use of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony), DIE HARD, while not exactly an unflawed film, is far superior to just about everything else the action genre had to offer in the 80s and, with a few exceptions, has had to offer since then.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Die Hard
Review: Truly one great action film. No action film since Die Hard has been able to come close to what this film has achieved. Bruce Willis may be the star, but truly Alan Rickman's portrayal of villian Hans Gruber is what clearly made this movie what it is. Rickman adds class and dignity to the villian, making you hope they can actually succeed with plans. Now that is a great movie when you actually hope the villian, or how I see him, the Anti-Hero succeeds!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: "Now I Have a Machine Gun, HO HO HO"
Review: This is probably the epitome of what an action movie ought to be. All action movies after this were modeled after Die Hard. It's true. The formula: Terrorist takes over (place), one hero is there with them who has to save the day. How many times have you seen that? Probably more than just a couple of times if you watch a lot of action movies. Not that all those movies were bad, but they can't hope to live up to the original thing. This movie had it all, great dialogue, a great script, great actors, great special effects, and the perfect combination of action with comedy. This is arguably Bruce Willis' best character ever. His banter with head terrorist Hans Gruber is at times hilarious, at times adrenaline pumping, his conversations with Sergeant Powell are inciteful and interesting, and him just talking to himself are all great parts of this film that add to the story.
The DVD of this movie fills all expectations of what a great DVD should be and then some! I haven't watched all of them, there's so many! First off, the extra scene, Turning off the Power, isn't that great. It just shows a little more of the terrorists turning the power off. The Scene Editing thing, as many reviewers have said already, is absolutely awesome! You get to play around with scenes, changing camera angles, editing the sound, etc... You'll be playing around with this thing alone for days! It includes the full screenplay, which is cool for people like me who have an interest in writing. It of course has all kinds of trailers and TV spots, and it has about three commentary tracks. One of them that I haven't tried yet is supposed to be in subtitle form instead of audio. As I said, I haven't tried it yet, but it seems like a cool thing because that way the sound of the movie isn't interrupted while the commentary is running. This is what all DVD's should be like!!!
Anyway, if you haven't seen this before, rent it this weekend and watch it with some friends. I give you my personal guarantee that you will enjoy it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: THIS MOVIE IS AWESOme
Review: this movie is i so action packed . its old but the action is still raw. get this if u dont have it on tape cuase its a n action good movie

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Best Action movie ever made!
Review: This is one of the most inspiring Action movies to ever face the
Earth and this one is the king of them all. It has Bruce Willis
who plays a Cop that sees his wife again in a Building somewhere
in L.A. but suddenly a gang of Uninvited terrorist come in and make the place into a living war zone. Now it's up to Bruce to kick
Criminal butt and to make them pay for good, it's got a heck of
a lot action with some humorous undertones to it.

Worthy of adding it to the DVD library.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Guys Christmas Movie (The Best of the Trilogy)
Review: "Yippie Kye Aye Mutha..." Well, any fan would know the rest. If you don't know the rest, and you like good solid action movies, then you need to buy this Five star collection. Now before you blow this movie off as a mindless violent movie, let it be known that Die Hard was the action flick that changed everything. Before this one, actions films usually had heroes who were all muscle and no emotion. Bruce Willis comes off in this movie as an everyday guy. Yes, he's a cop, and a smart cop, but it is his portrayal as a troubled husband and father with marriage problems that really hits home. He's not perfect. He's stubborn and unobjectionable, and that helps us relate.
Willis plays John McClane, a New York detective who travels to California to visit his wife at her company Christmas party. She has moved out there to successfully pursue her career, an idea that an old school Irish cop such as himself is probably not used. He comes from a family who is most likely holding to values that the wife should be taking care of the kids and not working for a multi-million dollar company. McClane is not against her working, but he probably holds reservations about it. They are separated, but it is obvious they miss each other, too. In a turn of events a group of 'terrorists' take control of the building where the party is taking place. The lead terrorist is played by Alan Rickman, also changing the role of the villain for all time as well. Rickman plays Hans Gruber, a smart, slick and highly intelligent criminal who does not gloat with evil laughter. He is single minded and professional. What happens afterward is a sharp game of cat and mouse as Gruber tries to figure out who this monkey wrench in the works is and McClane gathers information about the terrorists and tries to get help from the outside. Interestingly, his first ideas are to get help, not take everyone on all by himself. He constantly stays on his toes and the title of the movie becomes very apparent as McClane takes injury after injury but keeps going. Add in some humor, some emotional conversations between McClane and a beat cop who he contacts outside the building, and some moments where the fear in Willis' character become very clear, and you get a movie that is so well rounded and entertaining, it's no wonder it's a classic. Enough said, buy it.
By the way, I say it's a guys Christmas movie only because it takes place at Christmas time.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great movie, but DVD could have been even better.
Review: First of all, there's a great movie in widescreen on disc one. Obviously, that's two big assets. Within the film, we get a neat premise in foreign terrorists holding hostages in a skyscraper while a "fly in the ointment" from several floors up tries to thwart the terrorists' plans. That "fly" is Det. John McClane played with gusto by Bruce Willis. Following the advice of another flyer on the plane that Willis gets off of as the film begins, Willis is in bare feet when he first realizes the building is under siege. One can't help but say "ouch!" at several points in the film as McClane has to run down stairs, crawl through heating ducts, and over and through broken glass with no socks or shoes.

Engaging in cat-and-mouse with McClane is the German leader of the terrorists, Hans Gruber in an excellent first role for Alan Rickman. Gruber is intelligent, cold, methodical and determined to get what he came for. He relies on many underlings to do most of the work it takes to complete the job. Most of those, he considers intellectually inferior to himself and they are, to him, simply the means to an end.

The film itself never lets up in terms of action and suspense and one feels as though he/she has been put through the ringer when it is over. A couple of minor criticisms though: the dumbbell, inept deputy police chief played by Paul Gleason and the two FBI agents who are prepared to take out the terrorists their own way, are two elements that could have been left out without the movie suffering. To the contrary, it may have been even better.

Concerning the DVD itself, there is a lot of good stuff here, including director and cast and crew commentaries, and a few deleted lines and scenes along with numerous trailers and TV spots, but in the end the DVD suffers from lack of a good making-of documentary. One of the things that I've come to expect with most DVD's that I consider worthy to add to my collection is a good making-of doc. such as those that can be found on Taxi Driver, The Terminator, etc. Not having one on a DVD of this magnitude is a major minus. In its place is a seven or eight minute "featurette" that is strictly low grade and should have been trashed and replaced with something better.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Suprised
Review: I watched "Moonlighting" when I was younger, and then one day I saw a commercial for this movie. I was amazed that Bruce Willis would be cast in such a part. I didn't even think about seeing the movie, even though I love action films. Then one day, my brother spoke about this awesome movie he saw. To my suprise, he said it was "Die Hard". At the time, I was under age to see this movie. So, I did what all under age kids do,,I bought tickets for "Roger Rabbit" and snuck into "Die Hard". I loved this film, I still watch it on occasion. Every scene in this film was awesome. If I was marooned on a planet with only one movie to take, "Die Hard" would be the one.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This is really good....
Review: I like this movie a lot, so I bought the dvd. The dvd is good too -- great picture and sound quality. I highly recommend it.

For those of you who haven't seen the movie at all, here's some reasons for you to see it and buy the dvd: there's a part in the movie where willis is running around with bare feet and steps on some glass (the bad guys broke some windows). Later, you get to see him picking the glass out of the bottoms of his feet (ouch!). I liked that part. There's this other part too: there's this hostage business guy who thinks he's cool and tries to negotiate with Hans and the other bad guys. He promises to make willis give in and tell where the explosives are at, but he can't do it. Then Hans kills him! (Willis was watching, too.) I wasn't expecting that at all. I thought either Willis would come to the rescue or the hostage guy would just be let go. But no. That was pretty unexpected for me. So I liked that part a lot too. And one more thing. Bruce Willis's performance is really good. I love his facial expressions. Like, remember the look on his face in Pulp Fiction when he's about to escape from those sick gay guys, but then decides to grab a weapon and go back, to save the other guy that hates his guts? His face right at that moment -- when he decided to go back -- that was great, that's what I like about Willis. You'll see lots of cool faces like that in Die Hard too.


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