The Dead Pool/Phantasm II/Midnight Run/Boyfriends and Girlfriends/Die Hard

Roger Ebert - Host: "Die Hard" has a lot of action scenes, like the one on the roof. So many of them, you're amazed the skyscraper doesn't turn into "The Towering Inferno". They're dropping explosives down the elevator shaft, whole floors are being blown apart. But you can also see there, I think, one of the big weaknesses of the movie, and that is the idiotic behavior of the Los Angeles Police Department. There is one character in this movie, a deputy chief, whose actions are SO stupid and SO unmotivated and wrong-headed, that finally, he just brings the movie to a stop every time he opens his mouth. Bad writing, he always says the wrong thing, he understands NOTHING. And with a movie like this, once you start picking out the loopholes, and there are a lot of them, it doesn't matter how good the stunts or the special effects are, or even how good Bruce Willis. You just can't stay interested.

Gene Siskel - Host: I DID stay interested, because I saw this as really a mano-a-mano between Bruce Willis, who I think is really good in the film, and Alan Rickman, who is really quite devilish and quite sinister and threatening. And I also like the fact that it is held in the skyscraper, so there is some claustrophobia involving this terrorist- seeming terrorist attack. There's also a byplay relationship between Willis and his woman, his former wife, they want to get that going, she's one of the people that's been captured, but basically, I thought, two guys trapped in a tower, trying to fight it out, and I bought the film.

Roger Ebert - Host: What about all the cops on the ground? What about this deputy...

Gene Siskel - Host: They stay away. They stay away from him.

Roger Ebert - Host: Even after Willis is brought down to the ground...

Gene Siskel - Host: Yes?

Roger Ebert - Host: ...Which is a miracle, considering that all of the elevator shafts have been dynamited...

Gene Siskel - Host: I followed him all the way through.

Roger Ebert - Host: Uh, the cop is standing there saying, "We're gonna bill you for all the damage you've caused."

Gene Siskel - Host: There is always...

Roger Ebert - Host: I mean, you wanna GROAN at things like that!

Gene Siskel - Host: There are idiotic cops in the "Dirty Harry" movies too, and you laugh at them.

Roger Ebert - Host: Eh...

Gene Siskel - Host: Come ON, because Harry's smarter.

Roger Ebert - Host: This is NOT an idiotic cop, this is idiotic writing...

Gene Siskel - Host: No no.

Roger Ebert - Host: ...To make a cop like this. When it would've been better if he had just pushed the action forward instead of constantly being wrong-headed.

Gene Siskel - Host: One supporting character, two very interesting lead characters. I liked the movie.