Even though it's pushing 40 years old, my belief that Die Hard is the greatest action film of all time remains rock solid. It has a sublime cast, incredible pacing, real emotional connection, sparkling dialogue and the best group of henchmen in the history of cinema.
That belief is only getting more petrified in age, as things that used to annoy me suddenly seem to have a clear purpose. Such as the buffoon police chief Dwayne T Robinson, as played by the late, great Paul Gleason.
Gleason's skills as an actor were always obvious - in this and The Breakfast Club he plays the hard-assed authoritarian figure who you actually kinda like - but I always used to cringe at his one-liners that he dropped after the most breath-taking parts of the film.
Whether it's deadpan of 'we're gonna need some more FBI guys' after the big fucking explosion, or the 'I hope that's not a hostage', delivered while Hans Gruber is plummeting to his death, it always seems a bit much.
But after years and years of ham-fisted action films and far worse quips than anything Dwayne ever managed, the way he gives punchlines to the biggest moments of the films now feels like a strong punctuation to the explosion, letting the audience catch their breath after al the action.
It's truly skillful film-making, no matter how bad the jokes are. They just don't make' em like that anymore. They try, but they don't.
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