Die Hard is the story of a cop who, faced with a high-risk situation involving his ex-wife, is forced to work alone against sadistic terrorists. The film's dialogues are very accurate thanks to a consistent and fast-paced script, there are spectacular action scenes and great supporting actors such as Alan Rickman and Reginald Veljohson.
It is impossible to get bored with the film, as it goes at breakneck speed, and is superbly directed by John McTiernan, which creates or school in action films and in turn launches Bruce Willis to stardom.
The film is perfectly balanced between the spectacle of action, shootouts and fights.
John McClane is a fun and tremendously explosive character who, with each of his gestures and interventions, brings a touch of charisma to a film that is part of cinematic history as one of the best action movies of all time.
Hans Gruber, the villain played by Alan Rickman, (in his first film role), is cool and brazen. Strong and incorruptible in his ideas, he leads some terrorists, who in the end, turn out to be sophisticated thieves. In order to trap McClane, he pretends to be a hostage.
Al Powell (Reginald Veljohson) is the sympathetic agent who provides moral and psychological support to a stressed John McClane (Bruce Willis).
Karl, played by dancer Alexander Godunov, is a vengeful hitman and Hans Gruber's right-hand man.
Harry Ellis, (Hart Bochner), is the yuppie who ends up being killed for trying to negotiate with the villains.
Holly Gennaro McClane, (Bonnie Bedelia) is the executive of the company Nakatomi, in which she holds an important administrative rank.
In the city of Los Angeles, at Christmas time, an armed terrorist group has taken over the building of a Japanese transnational company called Nakatomi Plaza and has taken a group of people hostage. Only John McClane (Bruce Willis), has managed to escape the terrorist harassment, and he alone is the only hope for the hostages.
Die Hard in its own right became a classic of contemporary action cinema, ensuring entertainment from beginning to end.
The film reflects the loneliness of the hero who against all hope does his duty, no matter how hard it may be. It is a hero who has few resources and who in the end manages to make luck smile on him. The hero of the film is barefoot, he lacks weapons, the terrorists know all the tricks of the SWAT group, and the FBI so that the members of these are shown as inept being very bad.
John McTiernan makes this film in a very elegant way, especially when shooting the action scenes, directing his actors and making the most of a script that abounded in blows and violence. The explosions of the film were real, with extraordinary special effects and pyrotechnics unparalleled for the year 1988, plus the soundtrack is by the late Michael Kamen.
One of the best scenes is the one in which McClane saves his ex-wife from the clutches of Gruber with the gun attached to his back.
As far as I'm concerned this is the number 1 action movie of the 80's, and has been imitated in later productions such as: Passenger 57 with Wesley Snipes, Under Siege with Steven Seagal, Air Force One with Harrison Ford, Sudden Death with Jean-Claude Van Damme, Skycraper with Dwayne Johnson, Speed with Keanu Reeves, Olympus Has Fallen with Gerard Butler, White House Down with Chaning Tatum, Con Air with Nicolas Cage and many, many others.
"Yippi Ka yey, motherfucker", a somewhat rude phrase and that comes in part, ( just Yippi Ka yey ), from an expression of revelry and merriment used to greet each other by the cowboys of the mid-19th century. John Mc Clane and Hans Gruber, talk for the first time through a Walkie Talkie and Gruber asks him who he is and who he thinks he is. The conversation ends up degenerating into Mc Clane liking old cowboy movies featuring Roy Rogers. At that point, the protagonist hears the terrorists on duty arriving and as he says goodbye to Gruber he blurts out the famous "Yippie ki-yay, motherfucker".
I saw this movie in its premiere at a drive-in theater in Caracas, I was surprised by its spectacularity, how well shot it was and the tension generated by the actions of McClane who had to use all his wits to counteract the criminal actions of this group of kidnappers who really presented a hidden plan that was to steal 640 million dollars in bonds that were in the vault of the building.
McClane arrives in the city of Los Angeles to save his marriage, but fate forces him to save many people.
This is my participation in the initiative proposed this week in the CineTv community called CineTV Contest #50 - Favorite Iconic 80s Movie Link Here.
Best wishes to all and good luck to the participants.
The collage is of my authorship, being these the sources used: Source,Source,Source,Source,Source,Source
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