Genre Grandeur – Die Hard (1988) – Encore Review 8 – MovieRob

For this month’s next review for Genre Grandeur – L.A. Films, here’s a review of Die Hard (1988) by me.

Thanks again to Amanda of Hollywood Consumer for choosing this month’s genre.

Next month’s genre has been chosen by David of Blueprint Review and we will be reviewing our favorite Hong Kong Martial Arts Movies.

Please get me your submissions by the 25th of Nov by sending them to hkdave@movierob.net

Try to think out of the box! Great choice David!

Let’s see what I thought of this movie:

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“The man is hurting! He is alone, tired, and he hasn’t seen diddly-squat from anybody down here. Now you’re gonna stand there and tell me that he’s gonna give a damn about what you do to him, *if* he makes it out of there alive? Why don’t you wake up and smell what you shoveling?” – Sgt. Al Powell

Number of Times Seen – Seriously too many to count (Video, Cable, 13 Oct 1992, DVD, 4 May 2000, Jan 2012, 24 Nov 2013, 30 Nov 2014, 4 Nov 2015, 11 Nov 2015, 13 Jul 2017, 3 Dec 2017, 30 Jul 2018 and 2 Apr 2019 and 29 Oct 2019)

Link to original review – Here Here Here Here Here, Here, Here and Here

Brief Synopsis – An off duty New York cop travels to L.A. to spend Christmas with his family but never expected to be trapped in a high rise office building when terrorist take it over.

My Take on it – When Amanda chose this genre for this months theme, I knew right away that this film would be among my choices.

I’ve seen this movie so many times that I lost count years ago.

It is one of the films that I’ve seen the most in my life and still enjoy it immensely whenever I watch it.

This is an amazing film that works on so many different levels.

The story does a great job showing the contrast between the two sides of America in so many aspects but most importantly how cops in New York and Cops in LA work very differently.

Bruce Willis is superb in this film and his performance is so powerful that it helped make this movie spawn an entirely new film genre that has been copied so many times over the 30 years since its inception.

The story is paced really well and moves along at lightning speed as the story gets more and more tense along the way.

This film gets so much right and draws in the viewer quite close throughout.

Their attention to small details helps make this even more enjoyable to watch because there is so much to take it even when it might seem as if things are extraneous.

Alan Rickman is also superb in this film which was his screen debut.

He is able to play a villain who can be so likeable no matter what despicable acts he commits along the way.

The script is written really well and they leave things open to a point where it’s quite easy to throw in a bunch of twists, turns and surprises along the way that help enhance the story and make this so much fun to watch unfold.

Bottom Line – Amazing film that works on so many levels. They do an amazing job showing the various differences between the way things are done on the two contrasting sides of the country. Willis is superb in this movie and is able to create a whole new genre of film by the success of his performance here. The story moves along at an amazing pace and they get so much right here even down to minute details. Rickman is also excellent in his screen debut as a sophisticated bad guy who is able to be maniacal without the need for the audience to hate him. The script is superbly written in a way that leaves the story open for some thrilling surprises along the way. Highly Highly Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – At the suggestion of director John McTiernan, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ode to Joy (Ninth Symphony, Fourth Movement) is the musical theme of the terrorists. Hans Gruber, the terrorist leader, even hums it at one point in the movie (while he is on the elevator with Mr. Takagi). Film composer Michael Kamen at first thought it was a “sacrilege” to use Beethoven in an action movie, telling McTiernan: “I will make mincemeat out of Wagner or Strauss for you, but why Beethoven?” McTiernan replied that Ode to Joy had been the theme of the ultra-violence in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971). Kamen, a Kubrick fan, then agreed. (From IMDB)

Rating – Oscar Worthy (10/10) (no change from original review)