"Happy trails, Hans...."

John McTiernan's star has been fading lately, but it shone like a supernova with 1988's Die Hard, a taut and exciting action thriller that made Bruce Willis an international star and began a trend of explosion-laden action thrillers that followed its basic formula -- sometimes successfully, but more often not.

The story takes a basic Western-movie plotline (lone hero faces off against a band of menacing black hats) and pulls it forward into the late 20th Century. N.Y. Detective John McClane (Willis) arrives in L.A. for a Christmas vacation with his estranged wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) and their children. At a Christmas office party in the still unfinished Nakatomi building (where Holly has an executive office), a band of what seems to be a group of well-financed terrorists takes most of the partygoers hostage. It is up to McClane, who luckily is in a rest room as Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) and his thugs crash the party, to foil the villains and rescue the hostages.

McTiernan, working from a screenplay by Jeb Stuart and Steven de Souza, blends in various types of styles into Die Hard. With the relationship between McClane and L.A. police Sgt. Al Powell (Reginald Veljohnson) he inserted the "buddy picture." With the police angle, he uses the "cops and robbers" theme. The screenplay and movie also highlight wit and droll humor -- especially on Gruber's part. As the prime mover of the action, it's Gruber who's the protagonist, with Willis as the heroic antagonist.

Die Hard is one of those rare action adventure films that works on various levels. As an in-your-face, fight-to-the-finish nail biting suspense story, McClane's cat-and-mouse struggle against Gruber's gang is peerless. From his first encounter with a young German hood who, upon learning John is a cop, confidently sneers: "You can't hurt me, you're a police man. There are rules for policemen...." to his final (and don't tell me I spoiled the ending for you, either!) confrontation with Gruber, ("Happy trails, Hans!") McClane's lonely oddysey up and down the multistory Nakatomi Tower is simply riveting. When watching this film for either the first or the hundredth time, you wince with pain every time McClane is hurt or placed in mortal danger. (Hint to vacationing police officers visiting their estranged wives at their place of work in a hi-rise
building: Never, ever take off your shoes!)

Die Hard is also a very broad parody of everything American in the yuppie-dominated 1980s, targeting executives' excesses (do you work in an office as comfy or luxurious as the ones seen in this movie?), the dog-eat-dog world of "if it bleeds, it leads" TV newscasts (personalized by William Atherton's slimy and unscrupulous news reporter, Dick Thornburg), talking heads experts gleefully chattering away, and consumerism in general.

It's also, at its heart, a tried-and-true love story, giving McClane not only a clearly moral advantage over Gruber and his heavily-armed henchmen, but also giving the often sardonic and heroic-by-circumstance New York cop a badly needed dose of human vulnerability. It makes the smart-mouthed Willis a lot more appealing than if he was just a gung-ho cop just lusting to either kill or bust the "perps" for his 15 minutes of fame and a way to quit his job to go on the talk-show and book tour. Watching Holly and John discover that they really and truly love each other despite their different perspectives on marriage and Holly's career is one of the reasons why Die Hard still stands ten feet taller than its countless imitators (Speed, Under Siege).

Adding emotional impact to the onscreen derring-do and murderous mayhem -- this picture is fun, but it's definitely not for kids! -- is a powerful score by the late Michael Kamen, who interpolates quotations of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and "Singing in the Rain" into his suspenseful instrumental incidental music.

The Five Star Collection DVD re-release is one of 20th Century Fox's best releases to date. The widescreen format and sound are great, the new interactive menus are eyepopping, and the extra features on both discs are excellent. Although perhaps a bit more expensive than either the VHS or original DVD release, the new Collector's Editions of the Die Hard films are worth every penny.