So first off, the Christmas movie thing. Yeah. This...is a Christmas movie. Plenty of Christmas songs. Even a Christmas song whistle. There’s even snow at the end, even if it is, like, paper, falling from a decimated building. It’s fucking L.A., how else you going to pull off snow realistically? Because this is absolutely a realistic Christmas movie. “Now I have a machine gun. Ho-Ho-Ho.” How more much fucking Christmas do you need?!? But honestly, you can still watch it even when it’s not Christmas, you’ll still dig it almost as much.
John McClane is just a New York cop, going to visit his wife on the West Coast. He don’t like flyin. But, reasons, partly involving his potentially maybe crumbling marriage. Unfortunately, he gets caught up in something that unbeknownst to him is a bit off after arriving at the Nakatomi building for their CHRISTMAS party. And shit gets mean. Quick. It’s tight. Efficient. All he needs to do is keep his head on his shoulders and shoes on his feet. Well, One outta two ain’t bad.
This is a fantastic action movie from start to finish. Perfect beats on the narrative from the beginning, just enough drama to get you caring for the characters, smattered between the champagne and bullets and broken glass, with plenty of fights and gunfire and shit blowin up to fill out the dead space. Good cops, bad guys, all in the mix. I usually shy away from the ‘bigger’ movies here on the DMR, stick with reviewing the weirder obscure shit that many haven’t heard about. But this one is a cinematic classic Christmas movie. Don’t believe me? I’ll fight ya for it. Well. Maybe not fight. If there’s Malort involved, maybe. Or gin. Gin apparently makes me kinda mean. I don’t drink gin. Anymore.
But What makes this a better movie than most is the steady addition of details and new environments and characters. Great pacing and enough intrigue that makes you pause it before going to grab another beer in fear of missing the next cool thing. The attention to details here really make it a better movie, small moments of realness or absurdity (like the SWAT member going through the rose bushes and pausing “Ow!”). Not-Huey-Lewis is a stand-up henchman here. Hans Gruber (that English Bloke Alan Rickman slumming it in those Potter movies), here as the perfect bad guy. The Asssho newsman. And Bruce Willis, with hair. He’s absolutely pitch perfect here, in both the slow and fast scenes. Again, fantastic from start to finish. Action movie finales always kind of suck. The last couple minutes here? No excepion. That’s just a given and baked into the overall rating, I politely suggest go fuck a donkey if you disagree. Not saying I started thinking about gin. Then things happened. So yeah, donkey dicks for you. If it’s not Christmas. Hmmm… That’s not very Christmassy. If it is Christmas, we will agree to disagree. Otherwise, donkeydicks.
