LogFAQs > #979636094

cjsdowg posted...

Here is their Die Hard Review.

And I can't help put to think that Ebert did not know much about police.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gnauAwWk5c&ab_channel=BeforeTheMultiplex

I'll agree that Dwayne T. Robinson is the worst character in the movie. The novel has a payoff for including such an obnoxious character. The movie really doesn't.

That being said, I doubt that Ebert was enjoying himself until Robinson stupidly assumed that "Roy" was a bartender or else one of the terrorists. Likewise for the Nakatomi Plaza not turning into the Towering Inferno after the first explosion. They even have a verbal exchange addressing that in the movie.

Ebert sometimes liked films that were violent, such as Dawn of the Dead or Pulp Fiction, but he disliked films which glamorized violence. He was confronted with a near-perfect film where a man with a gun shoots a bunch of bad guys and is justified for doing so. If he went out there and admitted that the film was well-directed, well-acted, well-paced, and well-written, but that he disapproved of its depictions of heroic violence, he would have looked like a complete nanny.

So he had to find some excuse to make one of the best action movies of all time -- for my money, THE BEST -- seem like just another dumb action flick.