Why "Die Hard" is a Christmas movie [View all]

[jmowreader]

Besides being set at Christmas, a Christmas movie needs at least one of three plotlines:

An interpersonal conflict between two or more of the main characters that is resolved favorably by the end of the film.
A villain who tries to destroy Christmas, and is foiled.
A character who has a personal demon he defeats to become a whole person once again.

In classic Christmas cinema, an example of the first plotline is in Miracle on 34th Street, where the characters who aren't Kris Kringle try to get Kris committed to a mental hospital for thinking he's the real Santa Claus. This is also the plot of every Hallmark Channel Christmas movie, as well as "Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas," where Kirk - who still believes Christmas is a Christian holiday - convinces Christian, his brother-in-law, that all the commercialism and pagan elements of the modern holiday are really Christian symbols.

The most obvious example of the second plotline is the Grinch, who despises Christmas over its commercialism then learns to love it when he sees commercialism is not the most important part of the holiday. This is also the plot of "Home Alone."

And the third is in A Christmas Carol, where Scrooge is converted from what he was to a joyous person through the visits of the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future.

Die Hard is a special Christmas movie in that they managed to fit all three plotlines into the movie in a way that makes sense: the first one is seen in John and Holly's marriage, which at the beginning of the film is so bad John plans to stay at his retired captain's home in Pacoima rather than Holly's house while he is in "fuckin' California." The villain, naturally, is Hans and his gang of bad guys who break into the building to steal the $640 million in "negotiable bearer bonds" while making it look like it's a terrorist attack rather than a heist. One does have to wonder why the global and highly successful Nakatomi Corporation didn't put battery backup on their vault if the seventh seal - a reference to the Seven Seals in the Bible's Book of Revelation - required electricity to operate but that's an issue for another day. Police Sergeant Al Powell - a cop so traumatized by a bad shooting he'd been involved in earlier in his career that he was consigned to a desk, then worked with John throughout the movie over the radio and found it within himself to kill the last gang member to save John and Holly - is the third plotline.

So...now we have a Christmas movie. Ho, ho, ho.