Posted on 07/12/2018 7:12:04 AM PDT by Bigtigermike
All of this is mundane stuff. It’s also a prime example of why Die Hard remains the greatest American action movie since it was released 30 years ago this week.
Consider everything that the director, John McTiernan, and his screenwriters, Jeb Stuart and Steven E de Souza, set up in this brief little scene. Though Bruce Willis plays McClane as the modern American cowboy, Roy Rogers with an attitude, the film-makers choose to emphasize his vulnerability first. His fear of flying gets us primed for the bumps and bruises he will sustain all night long, when a phalanx of terrorists take over a Christmas party at Nakatomi Plaza.
McClane’s most important quality isn’t his toughness, but his flesh-and-blood humanity, which is what most of the film’s sequels get wrong. The advice he gets from his seatmate gives him a reason to be barefoot during the entire ordeal, including a sequence where henchmen deliberately shoot out the glass to shred his flat soles. The gun establishes him as one of New York’s finest, and the ring suggests a commitment to his marriage that his wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia), we soon learn, doesn’t share.
(Excerpt) Read more at amp.theguardian.com ...
Me, too. I loved Bruce Willis in Moonlighting. What an amazing transition in roles. And he carried it off so well!
I cringe at the barefeet and shattered glass.
Yeah, that seen causes me to squirm just a bit, because I have stepped on broken glass.
Ping.
Ping.
What is amazing to me is how it’s an action movie in which the action doesn’t get started until about 45 minutes in. Character development is important!
Look up Cinema Sins -Everything Wrong With Die Hard.
Language warning fwiw.
Yup, every Christmas.
Beautiful movie.
Whisper it: Loved Die Hard II. Didn’t like Die Hard I.
My favorite xmas movie.
But hans stole the movie.
sounds good, thanks
Yippee Ki Oh...................
GREAT PICTURE! So miss Alan Rickman’s acting in new projects. He was dynamite.
It’s an addictive YT channel.
I saw it in the theater way back when and some parts bothered me even then as a teenager.
If you want an action movie so bad that in a way it’s good, try Samurai Cop.
LOL Exactly. It has become a family tradition to watch “Die Hard” on Christmas Eve. Great film.
And I always thought Bonnie Bedelia was one of the hottest MILFs back in the day.
Who would win in a fight: John McClane or Jack Bauer?
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