12 Days of Christmas - Day 9 Die Hard (1988)

Who in the world hasn't seen Die Hard, well actually me, until now!!  I have seen some of the sequels but never the original and I don't even know why.  Luckily it popped up in Total Film's Top 12 Christmas Films which gave me an excuse to watch it.

 

 

John McClane (Bruce Willis) is a New York cop estranged from his wife who moved to Los Angeles for a job.  For Christmas he heads to her office party (with limo driver xxx (xxx) in tow) but before he can enjoy the festive season he has to foil the plans of money grabbing terrorist Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) and save his wife and all her colleagues single handedly. (if anyone can do it, it's Bruce Willis!)

 

 

I didn't expect to enjoy this as much as I did, Bruce Willis is at his acting peak (recently saw A Good Day to Die Hard and his acting abilities seem to have taken a bit of a nose dive in recent years) he is brilliant hard man with the best one liners ("Yippie-ki-yay, motherf*cker" being my all time favourite!).  Alan Rickman is great as the evil Hans Gruber, his calm façade is brilliant right up until you notice the panic in his eyes as his plan starts to fall apart.

 

 

I know a lot of people consider this to best action movie ever made and I kind of wish I had seen it around the time it was released before the numerous formulaic copycats got hold of it.  Unfortunately I have already seen countless movies with this formula (including some of this ones sequels) so it doesn't have quite the same impact on me.  However, I did love it, the first 20 minutes of action worried me a bit because I just wasn't feeling it but then it picked up and I was gripped.  I now feel like I should watch the rest of the set in the right order!!

 

Its hard to fault this movie, great action, awesome bad guy, perfect good guy and one-liners that make you punch the air in excitement.  Even if you didn't get to see it when it originally came out, see it now!!