Die Hard

Yippee-ki-yay!!!
That's right folks, it's time for Die Hard. Another $5 bin find that I probably get as much enjoyment out of watching as I do asking my wife if she would like to watch with me. It's one of the "classic" films from a childhood filled with watching movies that were inappropriate for my age when I watched them.
The film itself is interesting because of it's place in film history. Released at a time when action films were dominated by bulking heroes like the Govenator, Stallone, and even the great Dolph Lundgren, Die Hard aimed to return action films to the common blue collar dude.
That man is John McClane, a play by his own rules New York cop flying to L.A. for Christmas wife his estranged family. The plan is for McClane to meet his wife at her office for their Christmas party before heading home.
The plan of course is rudely interrupted by a group of European terrorists looking to spread their own form of Christmas cheer. The terrorists are lead by Hans Gruber who is played by Professor Snape (Alan Rickman). Gruber is callous, inposing, creepy and inarguably the difference between this movie being just another action film and one of the great action films of the past 30 years. The bad guy is what makes all the difference in films like this. The performance must toe the line of between controlled and over the top so that you can enjoy the character while still rooting against them. Rickman is great at this.
McClane is the only thing these terrorists did not account for and the movie follows McClane as he takes down one bad guy after another until he gets to Gruber. It's a happy ending as McClane not only learns how tough he is, but also how much he loves his family and what he needs to do to fix things in the future. It's the sorta ending that you should have in all Christmas films.
Now, the one issue that remains for me is how good is this movie? There is no doubt that it's a guys movie and I have heard many times that it was able to rejuvenate the action film genre and is responsible for later action films such as Speed. I have already spoken to how much I enjoy watching Alan Rickman's performance as Hans Gruber and the film also works in some small twists along the way. The problem however is that the film is over twenty years old and has been imitated many times since. If you were to watch it today for the first time having heard it was a classic would it live up to the expectations. In my opinion the answer to that is no. The weakness of the film is the peripheral characters and the films attitude towards them. Everyone who is not "blue collar" is essentially a bully and an idiot. The cop in charge is a jerk who thinks McClane is as much to blame as the terrorists and the FBI guys who take over the investigation put into a play a plan that includes be okay with 25% of the hostages being killed. Inside the company, McClane's wife has to deal with idiots who do coke at their desk before confronting terrorists as if he were playing lets make a deal. Perhaps it's too much to ask for a film to have placed thought into every character, but this film puts very little thought into anyone outside of the main characters. This, along with the fact that other films have come out and raised the bar on this genre makes it impossible for the film to live up to expectations. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy it and whenever I just want to watch things go BOOM! I happy to know it's there. But it's not a must see because I can't recommend it with a warning about how it was made in the '80's. Having said all that, perhaps it's time I stop threatening my wife with making her watch it.