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movie review - Die Hard

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Tokyo, 2019.11.12

My eleven-year-old son and I watched this in the run-up to Christmas. It's about a cop from New York who's visiting his estranged ex-wife in Los Angeles. He's at her office when heavily-armed crooks show up to stage a massive robbery thinly veiled as an act of eco-terrorism. The cop escapes into an unfinished part of the building and begins to fight back against the vicious gangsters, who have started killing hostages. The whole thing plays out with a perfect note of semi-seriousness. I have to say, it's held up better than I expected, with its over-deliberate delivery and over-the-top plot being right at home with today's movie vibe. It's actually a bit smarter than I remember, which good threads to the story that bring together a piece that works as a whole.

Recommended.

rand()m quote

In the wake of 9/11, we [in America] have made the decision as a society that we can never again create something in which we can take pride, for fear that someone will destroy it. Moreover, we must suppress any trace of individualism, lest someone have the desire to rise above the bland sameness that protects us. I have, alas, no idea how to recapture our courage.

—Anonymous post to boingboing.net, 2009