Classic Christmas Movie Review: Die Hard (1988)

Post date: Dec 8, 2016 1:48:22 PM

By: Robby Timmler, Staff Writer

Posted December 8th, 2016

Die Hard is the story of New York City Cop John McClane (played by Bruce Willis), who goes out to LA to visit his wife Holly (played by Bonnie Bedelia) and his children for Christmas. The reason for the family split is that Holly’s career forced her and the kids to move out to LA, and John couldn’t leave New York because of his job. John meets Holly at her work building in Nakatomi Plaza owned by Holly’s boss Joseph Takagi (played by James Shigeta) during their Christmas party. Suddenly, the party is taken over by German terrorists, led by Hans Gruber (played by the late Alan Rickman), who plans on stealing all of Takagi’s Bearer Bonds. In the midst of the hostile takeover, John escapes and forms a plan to stop Hans. Since the phone lines have been cut, John pulls the fire alarm to call the police to the scene. Sergeant Al Powell (played by Reginald Veljohnson) is sent to check out the “fire” when John sends a him a message--by dropping a dead body on his car--that the Plaza has been taken over. From that point and onward, it’s up to John and Al to stop Hans and save the hostages from the Christmas party.

Die Hard is a great movie with great action, characters, and dialogue. The action is great, it keeps you entertained, and the movie is so gripping that you can feel the tension. The characters are relatable like John, who’s a man out of his depths and uses the skills he knows from being a cop to stay alive and defeat the terrorists. The one liners in this movie are all memorable and quotable. A major flaw in Die Hard are the jerk characters like Police Chief Dwayne Robinson (played by Paul Gleason), Holly’s coworker Harry Ellis (played by Hart Bochner), and news reporter Richard Thornburg (played by William Atherton) bogs the movie down with some the stupid things these characters do or say. Die Hard gets a 4.5/5 stars.