Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?  When I first saw the film in the summer of 1988, I never really thought of it as a Christmas movie.  Sure, it took place at Christmas, but I mainly thought of it as the most awesomest action movie ever!!!  Bruce Willis, known mainly as the wisecracking private detective David Addison on the television show Moonlighting, portrayed the wisecracking police detective John McClane in Die Hard.  

I was barely double-digit years old when Die Hard arrived in theaters.  Going to rated R movies was not something I was supposed to do.  Although I do remember my brother showing me Creepshow when I was much too young to see it, and being absolutely traumatized by that terrifying (to a 7-year old) film.  On a summery day in 1988, there was a commercial for Die Hard, featuring Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, on TV.  My mom decided she wanted to go see it that very moment.  My mom goes to movies occasionally, but very occasionally.  I don’t think I ever recalled her, before or since, wanting to go to a film so spontaneously, so instantly from a commercial.  She was a fan of Moonlighting, and I think she thought Bruce Willis was easy on the eyes too, if I am being perfectly honest.  

Next thing I know, my brother and I were whisked away to Showcase Cinema Sterling Heights to see my first rated-R movie, in an actual theater!  I did not know what to expect, but it turned out to be the greatest action movie of all time.  For those of you what might not have seen it, John’s wife Holly Gennaro, works in Los Angeles.  Detective John McClane still works back at their original home of New York, where he is a New York City Police Officer.  While visiting his wife’s company’s Christmas party on Christmas Eve in the high-rise building of Nakatomi Plaza, German terrorists, well… German thieves take over the building.  To this day, I believe that Alan Rickman, portraying Hans Gruber, is the greatest villain in a movie.  He has played the part of a villain in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Quigley Down Under, and is excellent in those films as well.  But there is something about his portrayal of Hans Gruber that is perfection.  He is suave, intimidating, and just plain cool.  A whole generation now knows him as the guy in the Harry Potter movies, or perhaps they know him as the jerk in Love, Actually.  But to me, Alan Rickman will always be Hans Gruber.  

The building fictionally known as Nakatomi Plaza, also portrays the fictional building in Speed in which Keanu Reeves and Jeff Daniels have to deal with a bomb on the elevator.  In reality, it is the Fox Plaza Building, the headquarters of 20th Century Fox.  When you watch Terry Bradshaw and friends present Fox NFL Sunday, they are just around the corner from the Fox Plaza Building.  

Die Hard has a wonderful cast, including Reginald VelJohnson as Sgt. Al Powell, Paul Gleason as Detective Dwayne T. Robinson, William Atherton as Thornburg, Alexander Godunov as Karl, Hart Bochner as Ellis, Clarence Gilyard Jr. as Theo, and De’voreaux White as Argyle.  Suffice it to say, there is plenty of action, a great storyline, and humorous dialogue.  Not to mention a few people falling out of the building along the way.  The whole magnificent film takes place on Christmas Eve and culminates with Let It Snow by Vaughn Monroe being played in the end credits.  

This to me always an action movie, plain and simple, that happens to take place on Christmas Eve.  But I never really considered it a Christmas movie.  Die Hard 2 felt more like a Christmas movie to me, just because that one takes place in the middle of a snow storm.  I guess my Midwestern bias finds it difficult to accept anything taking place in sunny and warm locales as truly being Christmasy.  Otherwise, Die Hard 2 was very similar (and similarly awesome) in that it was another movie filled with thieves and terrorists doing what they do on Christmas Eve.  No one I knew had ever seriously thought of it as a Christmas movie.

Once Die Hard was released on VHS the following year, my mom suggested that we rent it as a Christmas movie.  To me, it was a really funny idea.  Christmas movies were Miracle on 34th Street, It’s A Wonderful Life, Home Alone, things like that.  I thought it was a brilliant and original idea that my mom had, to make Die Hard our family “Christmas” movie.  When I mentioned it to my friends at school, they too thought it was preposterously funny and original.

Many years later, I would occasionally hear Die Hard referenced as a Christmas movie, and my friends would always say something like, “oh look, they got that from your mom”, or “they are stealing your mom’s idea”.  It would probably not be until maybe 20 years after its release that I started seriously hearing about Die Hard being referenced as a Christmas movie.  To me it just isn’t, it’s an action movie that happens to take place at Christmas, which honestly is not that hugely important of a plot point in the film.  But maybe I’m wrong, because the momentum seems to be on the side of my mom’s idea of “let’s watch Die Hard every Christmas”.  I guess she was right all along.  Her idea conquered the pop culture zeitgeist.  

If Die Hard can bring families together every Christmas, then I guess it really is a Christmas movie.  Merry Christmas, mom. I love you.  Your love of Die Hard has conquered the world.  And a Yippie, ki yay to everyone this holiday season!

-MTR