Actually, my ruin-the-entire-movie moment comes even sooner: I sincerely doubt they let people, even cops, carry loaded guns on airplanes, even in 1988. 
Actually, I was always impressed by Rickman’s ability to do a German doing an American. And the subtlety is amazing. The American accent has just the slightest hint of a German accent. All done by an Englishman. Bravo!
And he’s apparently been doing it for eleven years.
I know it seems blindingly obvious to you, but until Steve Irwin was on tv regularly in America, I don’t think most people here had heard enough Australian to accurately pick it out. I still have to sometimes be clued in to Monty Python’s Australian accents by the enormous clue of their costumes.
A fun Die Hard fact, which I learned on the DVD: when Alan Rickman was being dropped down into the (later digitally removed) big airbag for the scene in which his character falls to his death, the stunt coordinator was holding his hand and said “I’ll drop you on count of five.” Rickman agreed, and the stunt coordinator said, “One, two…” and immediately let go. Rickman’s surprised look is the one you see on screen.
Heck, wasn’t the whole building theirs? It’s referenced repeatedly as “The Nakatomi Building” or “Nakatomi Plaza”, as I recall.
Another minor glitch with the “Fenster” remark is that Fenster translates to “window”, not “glass”, as my German-speaking girlfriend attests.
Ok, ok, I took one year of German 18 years ago and got a D, lay off already! 
Hey, at least I got the verb right.
Anyway, my point about why it stood out way because it just reminded me so much of Monty Python and the Holy Grail: “C’est un cadeau!” “Un cadeau?” “A gift!” “Oh, un cadeau!”
You would be wrong then. I had a good friend that was a cop, and he always packed when he flew. (Knowing him, he probably had more than one gun on him)
Back then a badge would get you out of security screening.
Can you tell the difference between these?
On the subject of actors faking American accents, it’s probably worth pointing out that there are a wide range of “American” accents, due to various things like the size of the country (We’re huge. Bigger than John Lennon.) or ethnic background. I’m pretty decent at figuring out if someone is Hispanic from how they speak English. They don’t necessarily have any kind of Spanish/Mexican/Latin accent, but they don’t sound like Jimmy Stewart either.
That said, sometimes I won’t notice the accent (Hugh Laurie, to me, sounds about what I’d expect an abrasive, irritable American who knew how much smarter than the room he was to sound like), and sometimes it will just strike false to me (Jamie Bamber, especially in the pilot movie, didn’t sound right to me in BattleStar Galactica, but then, I later realized, I had seen him previously playing an English officer in the Hornblower TV movies).
Actually, Ioan Gruffudd, who is Welsh, is able to throw accents over my head all freaking day without them sounding off (I originally saw him pulling off a convincing-to-this-Texan English accent in the Hornblower movies, which I was a huge fan of, and then proceeded to totally not notice him playing an American army officer in Blackhawk Down (he’s the one who loves that part of the cartoon they’re watching in the beginning).
Also, speaking of Hans Gruber, as hard as I try, I can’t picture him falling off of the tower in Die Hard without picturing him as Snape. Kinda like how I can’t picture Elrond without mentally giving him a pair of shades.
See, I read that scene differently: The first shot of the directory is just to establish that it’s there, and McClane just glances at it. The zoom showing “CLAY WM 29” is from Gruber’s point of view, so that we know where he’s pulling the name from. I don’t think McClane groks that part.
But it IS odd that WM gets two letters for his first name while everybody else gets just one. Yes, I know that William is often abbreviated Wm., but I doubt that some sign-assembling lackey would follow that convention.
It seems there are several clues that make John believe Bill Clay may not be Kosher.
Actually, no. It’s in the clip rayh linked to in post 41. Gruber is clearly standing against the wall next to the directory. After they laugh over McClane’s bare feet, McClane glances up to the directory, then introduces himself and asks Gruber’s name. Gruber, eyes locked on McClane the whole time, confidently gives his name as Clay (Bill Clay). Gruber must either have planned for this and checked the directory before meeting McClane (unlikely), or caught a glimpse of the directory with McClane there and picked the name out immediately. Either way, it’s extremely slick.
My personal Die Hard fantasy is to have a movie where the Grubers didn’t die and they team up to pull off another major heist. McClane is a badass, but the Grubers were gods among men. Alan Rickman and Jeremy Irons together would be too much awesome for a single movie, I fear.
I know you’ll go complain to your “mates” about this, but consider how you’d fare in comparing accents in Swahili.
Without your notes, I might possibly think the Irish man and the Ozzie man were from different regions.
At least the accents are that different in America. Really.
Along with their Scottish cousin, MacGruber, but they are defeated when MacGruber gets distracted at a critical moment.
I stand corrected.
Back to the OP, I speak Spanish as my second language. Normally, when speaking Spanish, I naturally use the generic Latin American accent I was taught in school. However, I spend a year in Granada, Spain, and I think I could pull off an Andalusian accent. (It might be an bad Andalusian accent tinged with American, but I think I could do it.)
Mentioning actors like Hugh Laurie and Jamie Bamber is beside the point. Those are people whose native language is English, doing another regional English accent. The Hans Gruber character’s native language is German, and he is doing a regional accent in English.
There are a couple of things I would like to add to this somewhat confusing debate:
Hans Gruber isn’t your average German. He is intelligent, resourceful and presumably rich and well-traveled. And yes, he is *in *America during the course of Die Hard. Is it really that far-fetched for him to have picked up basic American speech patterns at some point in his life, especially concidering he is in L.A.? I think not. In any case, he doesn’t speak *that *much American english, does he? It would be one thing say a few lines to fool John McCaine, another to hold a 30 minute lecture.
Also, James McAvoy (Wanted, Atonement)
Oh, so many places this could go…