Christmas is full of different traditions that are shared by people worldwide, especially in America. Be it opening gifts on Christmas Eve or the day after, to eating egg casserole and monkey bread or tamales on Christmas Day, some are more popular than others. Among these popular traditions is watching Christmas and holiday themed films. Home Alone, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol, White Christmas, and many others are perennial favorites for families everywhere. But there is one that isn’t frequently cited in some publications.
Die Hard is not a title that immediately screams holiday film, partially because it was released in the summer of 1988. It was marketed as an action film (which it is) that merely took place on Christmas Eve. The film tells the story of New York cop John McClane traveling to Los Angeles to visit his wife, Holly, at her workplace for Christmas, in an attempt to fix their marriage. Upon arrival, McClane finds out that Holly is using her maiden name and is a high-ranking executive in the business, the multi-million dollar Nakatomi Corporation. Little does anyone know that during the annual Christmas party, a group of heavily-armed thugs are planning to crack the safe and steal the money… unless they can get through John McClane.
The story behind Die Hard is an interesting one, because it was expected to flop on release. Despite being directed by John McTiernan (who had directed Predator with Arnold Swarzchenegger the previous year), leading man Bruce Willis was known for his role as the wisecracking detective David Addison on the hit show Moonlighting; the trouble was that his role was a comedic one, not a particularly physical one that fit the current idea of an action hero. Early marketing campaigns actually removed Willis from promotional images after the trailer was laughed at by audiences.
Against all odds, not unlike Willis’ character in the film, Die Hard pulled through and became one of the year’s top grossing films, and was eventually nominated for several technical awards at the Oscars.
What makes the film such a great holiday film is that it doesn’t play like a traditional holiday film. It has violence, profanity, and action sequences that begin within the first act of the story. Christmas films typically deal with the themes of family, redemption, friendship, the defeating of evil and the struggle of the good, among other things. These themes are typically explored in more dramatic settings, but they are all touched upon here in Die Hard, bookended with some of the most intense and suspenseful action sequences ever put to film.
One of the film’s strengths, both as an action and holiday picture, is the cast. It was Bruce Willis’ first big starring role in a film, and he portrays one of cinema’s most iconic “ordinary men” put into desperate situations. His deliveries of lines, including some great one liners, and those in the more dramatic moments, are beyond typical action hero fare. Bonnie Bedelia as Holly Gennaro (nee McClane) is not the typical damsel in distress female character; Reginald VelJohnson as sgt. Al Powell plays off of Willis very well, even though most of their interactions are over radio; and the supporting crooks and terrified office workers are very believable and effective.
Alfred Hitchcock once said that a film is only as good as its villain, and to rival Bruce Willis’ incomparable charisma stands Alan Rickman as terrorist leader Hans Gruber, in his first film role. The character of Gruber stands apart from other 80s action antagonists in the regard that he is not a simple, moustache-twirling villains in the vain of the James Bond films, nor is he a hulking brute for McClane to beat up; Gruber is an smartly written and intelligent character. In one of the film’s finest sequences, Gruber and McClane meet while Gruber pretends to be an escaped hostage. The scene gives both the hero and villain a very human interaction that extends beyond shooting guns at each other.
Another notable aspect of Die Hard is the music and sound design, which steeps traditional Christmas music into the film’s score. It turns famous songs such as Ode to Joy into thunderous backdrops for some of the film’s important scenes. It may not feature much snow (as would be expected in an LA based film) but it certainly sounds like a holiday film.
Since its release, Die Hard’s status as a Christmas film has been debated. Some publications, including Empire and Entertainment Weekly, have placed it high on lists of top holiday films whereas others have questioned its status as such. This is likely due to the film being an action film – not a genre that is typically associated with the holiday genre.
However, looking deeper into the film’s deeper themes, it tells the story of John McClane redeeming himself after going through a difficult marriage. The character of Al Powell also goes through a redemptive arc, and the themes of family are deeply ingrained into the plot. Besides McClane trying to rescue his wife, secondary antagonist Karl seeks revenge on McClane for killing his brother early in the film (“Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho.”) The friendship between Sgt. Powell, who is a typical Twinkie-devouring cop until later in the film, and McClane grows throughout the second and third acts of the film until an immensely satisfying finale. The final fifteen minutes is great enough to stand alongside the endings of any other popular Christmas film; this feeling is magnified because it is a Christmas film.
Die Hard eventually spawned a franchise, starting with 1990’s Die Hard 2 (often seen with the subtitle Die Harder), which was directed by Renny Harlin, of A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 and Cliffhanger fame; director McTiernan returned to the franchise with 1995’s Die Hard with a Vengeance, which starred Samuel L. Jackson alongside Willis (note that they both starred in the previous year’s indie smash, Pulp Fiction) and Jeremy Irons as Hans Gruber’s brother, Simon. 2007 and 2013 saw more modern interpretations of the series, with Live Free or Die Hard and A Good Day to Die Hard, although neither were as successful as the original three. Die Hard 2 and with a Vengeance are both good follow-ups and effective thrillers, but in some ways, the original Die Hard is most effective as a standalone film. The story of a man overcoming incredible odds, purely by chance and bad luck, is a difficult story to do twice (which is what happens in Die Hard 2, albeit at an airport) and have it make sense as a continuation.
By today’s standards, the film may seem too small a scale to thrill modern audiences the same way it did thirty-five years ago. But Die Hard is one of the definitive examples of an action film, and perhaps the quintessential Christmas film. It has everything — action, emotion, drama, holiday excitement — and manages to roll them all into a flawless whole. There’s little else to say, except for the newcomers, and in that case, “Welcome to the party, pal!”
