MOVIES have been used as a great way to get into the holiday spirit for decades with staples such as It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street.
These films have become an essential part of the holiday as families gather around to watch them.
However, no movie has sparked heavy debate each year as John McTiernan’s 1988 action classic, Die Hard.
Whenever Christmas season rolls around, legions of fans argue about whether or not the film starring Bruce Willis is a Christmas movie.
It got so bad that YouGov, a market research company, put out a poll two years ago hoping to settle the debate once and for all but even then the results were determined by a very slim margin.
In the end, 47 percent of people who saw the movie believed that it was not a Christmas film, compared to 44 percent who thought otherwise.
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However, the debates haven’t stopped and there are plenty of arguments proving why this film is often named one of the best Christmas movies of all time.
THE FILM’S PLOT
One could argue that Die Hard is simply about a man coming home for the holidays - just with explosions.
The film follows New York City Detective John McClane (Willis) traveling to Los Angeles, California on Christmas Eve as he hopes to reconcile with his estranged wife, Holly.
It sounds like your average Hallmark movie until the building hosting a corporate Christmas party - where McClane’s wife, Holly, is located - is seized by radical German terrorists led by Hans Gruber, played by the late Alan Rickman.
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The plot was actually based on Roderick Thorp’s 1979 novel Nothing Lasts Forever about a retired private eye who reunites with his estranged daughter and grandchildren in similar fashion.
The film was re-tiled Die Hard by co-producer Joel Silver and underwent several rewrites before hitting the big screen.
IMPORTANCE OF FAMILY
A film is only as good as its protagonist and fans everywhere love John McClane.
Playing the tough-as-nails everyman, it was easy to fall in love with Willis’ character, especially when he’s on a noble adventure to save his family.
The holidays are the perfect time for families to come together and enjoy each other’s company, making it easy to relate with McClane.
McClane fights for his family’s safety throughout the film while also working to fix his marriage, giving him the motivation to fight through hordes of henchmen.
It’s hard not to feel emotional when a bloodied and battered McClane begs LAPD Sgt Al Powell through a walkie-talkie to find his wife if he doesn’t make it.
“Tell her…that she’s the best thing that ever happened to a bum like me,” said McClane. “She’s heard me say ‘I love you’ a thousand times…she never heard me say ‘I’m sorry.’”
THE PERFECT VILLAIN
Even the cheeriest Christmas movie has a villain, usually one that prioritizes greed and materialism - two words that fit the sociopathic Hans Gruber.
Gruber fits the quintessential stereotype of a holiday villain: here’s there to steal money similar to what Old Man Potter does in It’s a Wonderful Life.
Unlike McClane who is a simple family man, Gruber is flashier and more sophisticated than the protagonists, which leads to his downfall.
HOLIDAY SETTING
As mentioned before, Die Hard takes place on Christmas Eve in Los Angeles and the characters make several nods at the holiday throughout the film.
Officer Al Powell can be heard singing Let It Snow in one scene before the corpse of one of Gruber’s men falls several stories onto his police cruiser.
Gruber mentions the holiday to another character, saying, “It’s Christmas, Theo, it’s a time for miracles.”
McClane’s limo driver, Argyle, even makes a comment about looking forward to the new year with his final line: “If this is your idea of Christmas, I gotta be here for New Year’s.
Gruber finds one of his henchmen, Tony Vreski dead in the middle of the film, wearing a Santa hat and a jumper reading: “Now I have a machine gun. Ho-ho-ho.”
The morbid scene comes after McClane came out on top after a long, brutal fight with Vreski and wanted to send Gruber a chilling message.
MUSICAL SCORE
Die Hard also has some Christmas-theme music on its soundtrack.
Hits such as Christmas in Hollis by Run DMC and Frank Sinatra’s version of Let It Snow are present.
Ode to Joy by Ludwig van Beethoven, which has become a popular holiday song, is also found in the film’s score.
SPIRIT OF FRIENDSHIP
McClane isn’t alone during his bloody journey and has a small band of friends that help him make it through the holidays.
Most notable are his trusted driver Argyle and Sgt Al Powell, played by Reginald VelJohnson who is also known for paying Carl Winslow in the sitcom Family Matters.
Powell and McClane are often touted as a great representation of male friendship, similar to Ellis Boyd Redding and Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption.
Fans have grown to love the two’s bond, despite the fact they only spend a few minutes onscreen together.
BEHIND THE SCENES
For the film’s 30th anniversary in 1988, its distributor 20th Century Fox released a re-edited Die Hard Trailer dubbing it as “the greatest Christmas story ever told.”
The film was portrayed as a traditional Christmas film with holiday music and new narration.
Many of the people who played a role in the film’s creation firmly believe that Die hard is a Christmas movie, including Steven E de Souza, the film’s screenwriter.
According to de Souza, Joel Silver had predicted that Die Hard would get played at Christmastime for years to come.
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Despite all these reasons, not everyone is willing to agree that Die Hard is a Christmas classic.
Bonnie Bedelia, who played McClane’s wife, Holly Gennaro-McClane, and VelJohnson both admitted that they never saw Die Hard as a Christmas movie during production.
“The main theme was not Christmas, it was getting McClane out of a bad situation,” VelJohnson told Entertainment Weekly.
Bedelia chimed in: “In the script, it was not, and while we were shooting, it was not.”
However, both agreed that they enjoy the debate.
“You never know what the public is going to respond to,” said VelJohnson.
“Whatever in the movie makes the audience respond it, I'm all for it. Although I didn't consider it a Christmas movie before, now you couldn't tell me it isn't. I'm 100 percent certain that it is.”
Bedelia said: “It's quite wonderful that this is still being debated 30 years on.
“But, the people have spoken, and it's their movie now.
But Bruce Willis, John McClane himself, made a hard stance against the movie being called a Christmas film during his 2018 Comedy Central Roast.
“I did this roast for one reason and one reason only - to settle something once and for all,” Willis said when it was his turn at the podium.
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“Now, please, listen very carefully. Die Hard is not a Christmas movie!” Willis declared to the crowd.
“It’s a g*****n Bruce Willis movie!”
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