It’s as much a Christmas tradition as tiresome clichés about sprouts and family arguments: “Is Die Hard a Christmas film or not?”
But this annual debate overlooks the film’s lesser yet more successful sequel, Die Hard 2: Die Harder. Now 30 years old, Die Hard 2 is one of the most sequel-y sequels ever made. It perfectly fits the template: not quite as good as the original but compensating by being swearier, more violent and, of course, more ridiculous.
Never mind jumping off a skyscraper with a fire hose as a bungee, as per the original’s big set-piece. In Die Hard 2, Bruce Willis’s John McClane has a punch-up on the wing of a plane as it rockets down a runway, while simultaneously unscrewing the petrol cap so he can also blow it up. “To some extent you have to give the audience what they expect,” said director Renny Harlin in 1990 about making the sequel. “But you also want to give them more.”
Die Hard 2 also cranks up the Christmas. Indeed, the sequel might not be as good as Die Hard – something that very few (if any) action films have achieved in 32 years – but Die Hard 2 is a better Christmas film.
The original Die Hard’s relation to The Most Wonderful Time of the Year is really incidental; Christmas is just the backdrop. McClane flies into the decidedly un-festive Los Angeles to reconcile with his wife, Holly (Bonnie Bedelia). After an argument – quite Christmassy, I suppose – Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber and his band of Euro-terrorists hijack the Christmas party. Cue McClane’s one-man war to save the Nakatomi Plaza.
Last week I saw a tweet arguing that Die Hard isn’t a Christmas film because it isn’t about Christmas. I would argue against that. All McClane wants is to spend a nice Christmas with the family, a sentiment at the heart of almost every Christmas classic. He just has to kill a small army of terrorists first.
And I’ve always seen McClane as sort of alternative action Santa Claus: instead of climbing down chimneys and leaving bundles of presents, he climbs down elevator shafts and leaves bundles of plastic explosives. But aside from the odd Christmas tune – “The weather outside is frightful,” sings sidekick cop Al to himself, “dum-de-dum delightful” – Die Hard’s Crimbo credentials aren’t solid enough for us all to agree on the issue.
