Die Hard (4 Stars)

It's almost Christmas. It's time to watch Christmas films, so the cinema EM (Eugen Mertz) showed "Die Hard" today. Is it a Christmas film or not? The answer isn't impartial. People who like the film say Yes, those who don't like it say No. I like it.

It's been four years since I last watched it. Today I went into the film with a bit more knowledge. The opening scenes have the feeling of a television film. Despite the relatively large budget ($25 million) it has the feeling of a low budget film. The film was slammed by the critics, but it was a surprise success at the box office. From what I've read, the critics gradually woke up to the film's quality. Recent critical reviews praise the film for the depths of philosophical and religious meaning that the critics missed the first time round. If renowned film critics make mistakes, what chance does an amateur like me stand?

That's not to say the film is perfect. I watched the film in a theatre that was packed with Germans. The bad guys (the terrorists) are supposed to be Germans, but not all of the actors playing them are Germans. Snippets of dialogue are in German, and there was loud laughter in the audience when the accent was awful or there were grammatical errors. The film should be corrected by dubbing the actors when they speak German. There evidently wasn't enough money left for such luxuries in the budget. Or maybe the studios never expected "Die Hard" to be shown outside of America.

This was Bruce Willis' breakthrough role. He was previously best known for appearing in the comedy series "Moonlighting". What would have happened to him if he'd never been offered the role in "Die Hard"? It was a close call. Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger both turned down the role before it was offered to Bruce. If not for "Die Hard" he might have spent his career playing family comedy films like "Meet the Ukrainians" and "My Horny Grandfather".

Which leads to the question: is Bruce Willis a good actor? That's a difficult question to answer. Based on this film alone, he looks like an inexperienced actor at the beginning of his career. He's doing his best, but he's not great. He improved as he went along. He's a better actor than Arnold Schwarzenegger, but that's not saying much. "Die Hard" was made in 1988, and he was soon typecast as an action hero. Over the next 30 years his career went up and down. There wasn't always a market for action heroes in Hollywood. His last 26 films were low budget films that went straight to video. That's a sad end to the career of a successful actor.

In Germany the film is called "Stirb langsam", i.e. "Die slowly". In German "Die hard" ("Stirb hart") sounds more sexually suggestive than it does in English. I put it to the test. When I bought my ticket in the cinema I said I wanted to see "Stirb hart", and the woman behind the counter chuckled.

Success Rate:  + 3.6

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