16 ~ Friday, July 29, 1988 - North Shore News

Mew Bruce Willis flick grabs
the viewer by the throat

Die Hard *** (20th Century Fox) Rated R (at the Granville, Oakridge,

Fraser, West Van, Coquitlam, Westminster and Clearbrook Cinemas) - Excellent
Very Good

EVERY SO often, a rollercoaster of a movie comes along

to grab the viewer by the throat. This year, it’s Die Hard

and, no, it has nothing to do with a battery.

Instead, it’s about John Mc-
Clane (Bruce Willis), a New York
City cop who’s in L.A. to patch up
his marriage to Holly (Bonnie
Bedelia). She left him for a posi-
tion at a Japanese electronics cor-

TiM
BELL

film reviewer

Average
Poor

stops the action cold.

However, he redeems himself by
performing many of his own
stunts. Seeing Willis craw! down
elevator shafts and dangle off of
rooftops hundreds of feet above
the pavement, will make audiences
squirm.

Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber,
the formidable ringleader, is a cool
villain, committing murder as
off-handedly as discussing men’s
fashions. His scenes with Willis
provide a solid core fox the action,
combining humor with tension.

Unfortunately, other characters
are not as interesting. A TV
reporter, the police chief and two

The Moderns *% (Alliance) (at
the Park)

Alan Rudolph’s films (Choose
Me, Trouble in Mind) tend to be
on the quirky side and this one, set

poration and took the kids with
her.

Putting aside his bruised ego, he
goes to her company Christmas
party in a glass office tower that is

srk

PIZZA & CHI

NESE FOOD
still under construction. Before he F:B.1. agents are there solely for © TAKE OUTe DELIVERY ©
gets to do much, cacept alienate cheap laughs and add nothing to

his wife still further, a dozen

the lengthy movie. However,
Alexander Gudonoff is memorable
as the long, blond killing machine,
Karl, who has a personal score to
settle with Willis.

Don’t wait for this one to come
to video. See it in a theatre,
preferably with THX Sound, to get
the full impact. The brilliant use of
open and confined space to create

suspense won't transfer well to the
small screen.

Euro-terrorists crash the party.
Only John escapes their round-up
and, using his wits, plays a tense
cat and mouse game with the
desperados.

In the dramatic department,
Willis is surprisingly good, talking
and joking to himself to keep calm
as his mind races to find solutions.
Only a rambling scene where he
breaks down is unconvincing and

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in Paris, 1926, is no different.
Keith Carradine plays Nick
Hart, a struggling artist whose ac-
quaintances include Hemingway,
Gertrude Stein and Oisseau
(Wallace Shawn), a gossip colum-
nist. One night at a cafe, Rachel
(Linda Fiorentino), a woman from
his past, enters on the arm of her
husband Burton Stone (John
Lone), and from then on it’s a
tug-of-war between the two men —

artist and businessman — for her
affections.

The languid pace is helped by
some good acting, fine period at-
mosphere and a lurking threat of
violence. However, two hours of
heavy irony (just look at the
names, Hart and Stone} and vague
parallels to today’s society do not

make this pretentious exercise a
movie,

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