By Logan Wofford
Most of us watch a couple of Christmas movies during the holiday season. I for one have always enjoyed the old, stop motion Christmas movies like Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer (1964). Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer is obviously a Christmas movie, it features Christmas characters, in a Christmas setting, with a story about Christmas. It might even seem simple to find out if a movie is a Christmas movie, but in some cases it requires much more thought. Die Hard is a 1988 action/thriller featuring Bruce Willis as John McClane, a New York cop who gets trapped in a skyscraper with an international terrorist group. So what about that is Christmas?
First of all, the main reason most call Die Hard a Christmas movie is because it takes place during the Christmas season, and not just Christmas season but Christmas Eve itself. The film also takes place during a big Christmas party. So far, everything seems Christmas-y, but everything Christmas begins to slowly fade away after that first 30 minutes. Throughout the rest of the film the most non-Christmas elements are seen: guns, violence, and death. That by itself doesn’t automatically take it out of the running of being a Christmas movie. For example Violent Night (2022) a recent Christmas movie incorporates an abundance of violence, but is still widely considered a Christmas movie, so what’s the difference?
Die Hard is an action film, much like Violent Night, but Violent Night is about Christmas. What I mean by this is that Violent Night uses Christmas characters to push a Christmas plot. The film features Santa in his compound, two staples of Christmas mythology. Die Hard on the other hand doesn’t feature any Christmas characters, and only takes place during Christmas. Throughout Die Hard Christmas music is often employed to make the audience remember that this music vaguely represents a Christmas movie. While being a smart move by the director, this still doesn’t make it anymore of a Christmas movie.
At the beginning of the film when John is in the limousine he has a conversation that I think represents the movie as a whole. The limousine driver, Argyle turns on the most non-Christmas music ever and John asks “Do you have any Christmas music?” Argyle responds saying “It is Christmas Music” and the camera zooms out. Die Hard might be a Christmas movie to some, and to others it’s just another action movie. At the end of the day there isn’t any real definition of what makes a Christmas movie, it’s whatever you want to believe. And if you don’t know if you should watch it this Christmas season, just know it’s a great action film with a cool and well done premise. You won’t be disappointed.