Die Hard (1988) ****1/2

This movie is really part of the canon at this point. It's such a classic of the action genre that it seems ridiculous to write a review of it, but I re-watched it the other day, and there are some things I noticed about it. Warning: The second half of this review contains major spoilers.

Bruce Willis plays John McClane, a New York cop visiting his estranged wife in L.A. over the Christmas holiday. Holly McClane, who has gone back to calling herself Holly Gennaro, is a successful executive with the Nakatomi corporation. John arrives at the Nakatomi skyscraper during the company Christmas party, just in time for the place to be attacked by a machine-gun toting squad of terrorists. Led by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), the gunmen take everyone hostage and start working on the company vault. John escapes to the upper reaches of the building and does what he can to interfere with their plans. He gets a radio and communicates with a cop on the outside, Sgt. Al Powell (Reginald Veljohnson), and he disrupts Hans's plans in spectacular fashion.

If you are one of the few people in the Free World who hasn't seen “Die Hard,” then you really need to stop reading now and just go watch it. In the modern, action-movie era of machine-guns, muscles, and explosions, “Die Hard” is one of the greats. Bruce Willis's mix of humor and intensity have aged better than the schtick of most '80s action heroes. He is a much more believable hero than Schwarzenegger or Stallone. Every great hero is only as good as his nemesis, and Alan Rickman is stellar as Hans. At one point in the movie, Hans pretends to be American, which means you have a British actor pretending to be a German pretending to be American. Rickman doesn't do a GOOD American accent, which he is probably perfectly capable of. He does the kind of American accent that a character like Hans, improvising in the moment, might do.

There is one aspect of “Die Hard,” however, that I never noticed before, and that is how anti-feminist the story is. Bonnie Bedelia does a great job playing Holly, the only significant female character in the film, but even her swagger can't overcome the movie's regressive message. We learn early in the film that Holly and John are estranged because Holly insisted on moving out to L.A. to further her career. A nanny watches her kids while she climbs the corporate ladder. She has even given up John's name to appear more independent in the corporate world. When he meets her at the Christmas party, she isn't wearing her wedding ring, but she IS wearing an expensive Rolex given to her by her employer. Holly is now married to her career, and John makes it clear that he isn't happy with her dropping his name and his ring.

When Holly's corporate world is invaded by Hans and his team, it is John, a manly, traditional guy, who comes to the rescue. When Holly shows some initiative of her own and steps up to be a leader, it is in a motherly role, asking Hans for bathroom breaks for the employees and for a couch for a pregnant woman. Finally, in the climactic scene, when Hans is hanging out of a 30-story window, dragging Holly towards the edge by her wrist, John releases the clasp on Holly's Rolex watch, letting it slip off her wrist and causing Hans to fall to his death. Holly could only be saved by giving up the token of her corporate success. Then in the end, having been rescued by her man, Holly introduces herself once again as “Holly McClane.”

To all of this I say, “So what?” Maybe “Die Hard” is a piece of Reagan-era propaganda for traditional family values. While we're at it, maybe the police chief and the reporter, who are secondary villains in the film, are ridiculously mustache-twirly. Maybe Sgt. Powell's story arc is painfully trite. None of these faults prevent “Die Hard” from being a classic and a must-watch. “Yippee kai-ay, mother----!”

4.5 stars out of 5