Film Review - Die Hard

Die Hard

For our third film lecture we watched Die Hard, a 1988 action movie. We learnt about Aristotle's Three Act structure. The three act paradigm that is a dominant model in modern day movies, televisions and books.  

The contents of the three acts are: 

You start with a 'Set Up'. You define the who, what and the where whilst grabbing the audience's attention.

During the middle (Act 2) you develop the conflict and and build complication towards and climax.

In the end you resolve the conflict and conclude the story.

In Die Hard we see this Three Act Structure comes into play and is very simple. The main character, John McClane, progresses from safety, (arriving at his estranged wife's Christmas party), to danger (learning about the hostage situation in the office building and that his wife is one of the hostages), to being beaten (fighting off the hostages, trying to save his wife and others), to revenge and victory (beating the terrorists, cooperating with the policeman, Sgt. Al Powell, and saving his wife in time for Christmas). 

I enjoyed this movie, your classic Christmas time movie that everyone has to see at least once.