Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1988) Review

Well it's finally Christmas Eve and last year I reviewed a Christmas classic in the form of The Muppets Christmas Carol that I still believe is the best Christmas film but, hey, that's just a tradition in my house (gonna watch it again tonight so...yeah). There are so many other Christmas classics that bring the Christmas feeling...I've said Christmas way too many times already. I think the other classics include It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story and White Christmas...so let's review Die Hard.

New York City Detective John McClane (Bruce Willis) is invited to an Christmas party by his ex-wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) in the Nakatomi Plaza in LA. It's not going to be good though as a group of German criminals led by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) arrive at the building and hold everyone hostage. McClane manages to slip by them which leaves him on his own. McClane is now one man against 12 armed criminals.

If you haven't ever seen this film, you will probably be surprised to hear that this is very much a Christmas film. It actually makes for some nice memorable Christmas moments such as the "Now i have a machine gun" scene. The soundtrack also offers some Christmas tunes that work surprisingly well considering that this is a violent action film. In addiation to this, the film does get a lot of humourous moments that are probably one of the man reasons that people rewatch this film year after year. It's easily one of the most iconic action films and lines such as "Yippee Ki-Yay, motherf**ker" will stick with you for ages. Of course, these moments don't detract from the great action scenes.

Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman are great. Sure, Rickman's accent seems to disappear as the film goes on but he still does a good job as the villain who works great opposite Willis as John McClane. Willis absolutely owns the role and proves that McClane probably couldn't be played by anyone else. The two are very enjoyable to watch as are the side-characters. Reginald VelJohnson and De'voreaux White make for likable characters that contact with McClane that you do get attached to (well, VelJohnson as Al Powell anyway).

Die Hard is definitely worthy of being a Christmas classic. Sure it does the action genre justice with great action scenes and hilarious one-liners with memorable original characters played by great actors, it also offers some Christmas imagery with a very Christmassy soundtrack. Well, that's it for Christmas season this year so it's back to normal films again after Christmas. I hope you have a good Christmas (or other Holiday if that's not your thing) and I'll see you afterwards.

Verdict:
8/10
With great action, humour and acting, Die Hard is a surprise Christmas classic that I plan on watching every year.