While the fifth Die Hard -movie A good day to Die Hard is coming to movie theaters at 15.2.2013, it´s perfect time to go back to the film from which the whole Die Hard -series has begun. The name of the film is simply Die Hard and it´s directed by John McTiernan.

But what´s Die Hard 1 all about? The terrorists take control of Nakatomi Corporation´s office aka Nakatomi Plaza, where a group of people is celebrating the Christmas Eve. Only John McClane, starred by Bruce Willis, a cop from New York and the hero of the movie succeeds to hide from the terrorists. His wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia), who works for the Nakatomi Corporation, gets caught and joins the other hostages.

The character of John McClane is different from the other action heroes at 1988, the year the film was made. Things are also going badly and John isn´t so superior. But he always figures it out, how to demolish these terrorist´ plans.

The direction and the cut of the film is one of a kind. It´s a good combination of what you see and what you don´t see and it creates the excitement to the movie. The camerawork helps you to understand, what the each one of the characters see and at the same time helps you to follow the story and the relationships between the characters. Also the environment, a huge sky scraper, which isn´t totally finished yet, gives different locations, because each block is different and recognizable.

The casting has succeeded to choose the right actors to the right roles. Bruce Willis as John McClane is amazing and he can say those kind of black humor -lines believably. Yes, watching this film makes you laugh! Also Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber, the leader of the terrorists is fantastic: his voice, accent, facial expressions etc, they all work! Only Bonnie Bedelia as Holly leaves me cold, because I think that she doesn´t act at all. But, lucky me, she´s just in a supporting role and isn´t shown on the screen as much as the others.

In the film there is one speciality: the German terrorists speak German to each other! Generally the Hollywood-actors speak English instead of their characters´ motherlanguage. This is one thing why I´m so impressed by Alan Rickman acting the one of the bad guys; he´s got the German accent, too!

I haven´t listened to Die Hard´s music earlier so much, but when I watched the movie again for this film review, I realized, that there are many famous songs in it. For example in the scene, where the terrorists succeed to open the vault full of bearer bonds,The Ode to Joy (Ludwig van Beethoven) is played on the backround. And because it´s Christmas, you can find many Christmas songs from the film. I think that well-planed music is one sign of a fabulous film.

The amazing plot is a thing that is missing from many action films, but not from Die Hard. There happens so much in the film, but it´s still one and whole. Even the tiniest things and lines belong together, because the movie is done well. Die Hard 1 is a good start to this series and the plot provides many possibilities to sequels.

Yippee-ki-yay, this is what I call an action film!