Christmas Movie a Day #3
Die Hard
Starring Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, and Carl Winslow (AKA Reginald VelJohnson)
Directed by John McTeirnan
Die Hard
Starring Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, and Carl Winslow (AKA Reginald VelJohnson)
Directed by John McTeirnan
Die Hard's a damn good action flick with only a very tenuous thread to Christmas, so its justification to be on this list can certainly be debated. I mean, it takes place on Christmas Eve and there's a Christmas tune or two that plays, but there's not really much else. But, that's perfectly fine, because winning performances from Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman along with some fun action sequences more than make up for the lack of yuletide joy.Willis is John McClane, a cop who's visiting his estranged wife for Christmas. He goes to her job at some company located in a high rise building in L.A. Little does anyone know that a group of terrorists headed by Rickman's Hans Gruber is going to take over the building in order to steal millions of dollars of bonds from McClane's wife's boss. Fortunately for McClane, he manages to hide upon the terrorists' arrival and is able to escape onto other levels of the high rise where he can, in turn, wreak havoc on the criminals.
The biggest problem with the flick is that there's not a whole lot of story for its over 120-minute running time. Whittle this flick down to a more manageable 110 minutes and you've got yourself an incredibly taut action thriller. As it stands now, it's not quite perfect. But it's certainly not for a lack of trying. Willis is great -- possibly the best role I've seen him in. He's funny, yet he's got a strong "action guy" charismatic personality. And Rickman eats up the scenery (in a good way) as Hans Gruber.
This one is almost a great action movie, but as it stands now, it's just a really good one.
The RyMickey Rating: B
The Christmas Spirit Scale: 1/10
(The Christmas Spirit Scale is a totally pointless rating that is simply my feeling about how "Christmas-y" the movie felt to me)
The Christmas Spirit Scale: 1/10
(The Christmas Spirit Scale is a totally pointless rating that is simply my feeling about how "Christmas-y" the movie felt to me)
I disagree with your Christmas-y rating.
ReplyDeleteDie Hard is obviously an allegory for the story of Santa himself, replete with all of the yonic symbolism that is contained in said story.
Think of it this way: McClane is Santa, Hans and his band of assholes are all the bad kids of the world. The Hostages are all the good kids and all the bullets are coal. Carl Winslow serves as the Elves, obviously.
Santa arrives to give all the good kids what they deserve (a sweet ass party) and guess what? The bad kids show up, cockblock him and take his shoes. Now Santa isn't going to let this happen so he finds his sack and starts to hand out 'coal'.
Remember the C4 down the elevator shaft? What does THAT remind you of? Yeah, that's right Santa being awesome and giving presents down the yonic-like chimney.
Don't even get me started on the phallic imagery that Agent Johnson & Johnson entail.
The end scene: Shirtless Santa running around with a gun strapped to his back, showing that Santa has nothing left to give, he will try and give his own flesh and blood to save the good kids from the baddies.
Well... That was odd.
Um...I don't even know what to say. "Cockblock" and "Santa" seem like two things that shouldn't quite be in the same paragraph.
ReplyDeleteThen you obviously aren't a Santa historian such as I.
ReplyDelete5/5 on that comment Justin. or A+. I'm unclear how I should grade things at this point. Jeff? little help?
ReplyDeleteto put it in "Jeff" terms: near perfect. practically fantastic mr. fox-ish in quality.
Cuss you, G....Cuss you...
ReplyDeleteyou're a loser for saying cuss.
ReplyDelete