Die Hard (1988) ****

In 1988 Bruce Willis was the guy that was on Moonlighting. Then he did a big budget action movie called Die Hard and the rest is history. The film is about an New York cop (Willis) who travels to Los Angeles in an attempt to reconcile with his wife (bonnie Bedelia) for Christmas. He travels to her office which is in the 3oth floor of a sky scraper in downtown L.A. Fate steps in as a group of Germans led by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) commits a terrorist act. It's up to McClane to stop them from the inside.

Die Hard is part of the genre of 1980's high action films that were the standard in the decade. Arnie, Stallone, and the others were the kings of stuff blowing up. Die Hard was part of that mold, yet it seems to be above the others. It's hard to pinpoint why. It's full of gratuitous stuff blowing up, profanity, one liners, and bullet ridden bad guys like all the others, but this one is more watchable than most. Maybe it's becaue Willis wasn't as musclebound as Arnie and Stallone. They were pictured as super human beings while Willis is just a New York cop with a receding hairline. It's a fairly well written film that's shot for action by John McTiernan.

It spawned three more sequels, none of which lived up to the original. Die Hard was that one diamond in the rough of high octane action films that were big 20 plus years ago. Hell, it's still getting sequels.