so my parents have a tradition of watching this movie come christmas time, and while i find the "die hard is a christmas movie" thing a little annoying, it's basically innocuous. anyway, i watched it with them this time.
it's a really good action movie! the one-liners are way more fun than any marvel one-liner. alan rickman absolutely kills it in this, and this is the only thing i've seen him in other than harry potter and it really makes me wish snape was like. a good character. anyway, the messaging on cops here is super weird, like weirder than i think people give it credit for. it's not so much propaganda for cops as a whole, as it is propaganda for the concept of the good cop.
lapd is completely inept, the fbi is directly calluous and uncaring, but john mcclane is rough around the edges but he does what has to be done. and powell is the one lapd guy whose ego is in-check enough to trust mcclane. and the weirdest part to me is that the movie basically ends on powell finally overcoming his guilt for SHOOTING AN INNOCENT KID and having the guts to draw a gun on someone again. which is BONKERS. and i think this is the most potent and specific copaganda the movie pulls: powell is not a good cop until he has the guts to kill, because good cops kill people and don't feel guilty about it.
so i really wouldn't recommend this to anyone who might have specific trauma around cops. but otherwise i think it's a fun action movie.
also the somewhat pervasive idea in the negative reviews for this movie that you absolutely have to agree with everything a character does and has done to be able to root for them is really bad for art. people are not perfect, and if having a protagonist that isn't perfect makes a movie bad and wrong, jesus christ things are bad for art.
everyone does bad things, if you act like you can't possibly empathize with someone who is like kinda unfaithful to his wife, you're deluding yourself into a moral high ground that no one can possibly honestly occupy.