Die Hard Details

Die Hard

On Christmas Eve, a New York cop comes to L.A. to see his estranged wife at her company's Christmas party, held on the top floor of a sparkling skyscraper. When terrorists capture the building, the incredulous cop is the hostages' only hope for survival.
One of the greatest action movies of the late 1980s, DIE HARD ushered in a new standard for the genre. With the dissolution of the Cold War, both the stereotypical Russian threat (represented in movies such as TOP GUN and RED DAWN) and the destructive egoist (as seen in OCTOPUSSY) became less fearful. With DIE HARD, director John McTiernan introduced Hollywood to a new type of villain: the terrorist entrepreneur. Alan Rickman stars as Hans Gruber, a relentless businessman whose lethal tactics achieve his goals. Unlike most '80s film villains who committed globally dangerous acts for liberty, genocide, or megalomania, DIE HARD's Gruber uses guns, explosives, and cunning to storm the Takagi Corporation's Christmas party and heist millions of dollars from the company. In addition, DIE HARD also saw the development of the clumsy or bad luck hero with John McClane (Bruce Willis), a man in the wrong place at the wrong time who chooses to intervene. Action fans would see this misfit hero archetype again in UNDER SIEGE (Steven Segal). Although DIE HARD contains many action movie cliches (one-liners, pyrotechnics), it also broke new ground in its genre.

Starring	Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, Paul Gleason, William Atherton, Hart Bochner, Alexander Godunov, Robert Davi, James Shigeta
Director	John McTiernan
Studio	20TH CENTURY FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT
Run time	DVD: 2 hrs 7 mins Blu-ray: 2 hrs 6 mins
Certificate
Collections	100 Cops & Robbers, 100 Eighties Greats
Genres	Action/Adventure, Thriller
Language	English
Hearing-impaired	English
Subtitles	Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish
Released	DVD: 01 Dec 2001 Blu-ray: 19 Nov 2007 Production year: 1988
Format	DVD