Rating of
4/4
A hero who bleeds
Andulamb - wrote on 10/02/20
Die Hard gets right what so many action flicks today do not. John McClane is human. He has emotions. He feels pain. He makes mistakes. Whereas 99% of action movies made within the last ten years have taken the opposite approach, giving us emotionless super-humans for heroes. Contemporary action movies are all about exuding cool: cool explosions, cool battles, cool 'tudes. So I guess John McClane isn't cool. A lot of the time he doesn't know what he is doing. He's in a building full of bad guys, and he's just winging it. He isn't armed to the teeth. He can't shoot a gun with his left hand and throw a knife with his right hand, simultaneously, without looking, while doing a backflip through the window of an exploding building. He gets himself into much less extreme situations that, nevertheless, he's really not sure If he can survive. And his fear Is palpable. In one scene he Is cornered In a glass-enclosed office, with bad guys shooting automatic weapons at him. And he does NOT devise some ridiculously ingenious escape plan In a matter of seconds. His solution ls completely lacking ln creativity. But that scene is a thousand times more exciting than most others you will see In today's action movies, for the very reason that it's believable.
