Bruce Willis in “Die Hard’. Image from 20th Century Fox
Christmas is less than four weeks away, and when you live in a country where the countdown to the most festive holiday of the year begins as soon as the “Ber” months start, it is the perfect time to write about the best Christmas movie, which is “Die Hard.” Yes, in my eyes, “Die Hard” is a Christmas movie. While it may not seem like it to some, it certainly is for many reasons, besides being the launching pad to stardom for Bruce Willis and leading the way to the creation of a new breed of “action stars” for which he is the main figure behind its rise in Hollywood.
Willis, what a legend he is! We all know that he is now retired due to a severe medical condition that has worsened to the point that he is unable to talk. However, his legendary action movies, such as “Die Hard,” will forever speak volumes about the caliber of actor he was and how treasured “Die Hard” has become. Especially now, everyone has found a deeper appreciation for Willis’s valuable contributions to the movie industry for decades.
“Die Hard” pioneered a more physically vulnerable hero, contrasting with the near-invincible onscreen characters of its time, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and Jean-Claude Van Damme.
Willis embodied the blue-collar worker and the common man, representing an everyday type of person. He demonstrated a strong sense of survival, resourcefulness in extreme conditions, and fearlessness. All of these manly qualities were displayed by his iconic onscreen character police detective, John McClane in “Die Hard,” who found himself trapped in a high-rise building with a group of terrorists, to make matters worse, his ex-wife was one of their hostages.
The premise, plot, and story of “Die Hard” are among the most fascinating. It poses a question to the moviegoer: what would you do if you were in his position? Are you willing to risk your life to save your ex-wife, and all the other surviving hostages, and confront a heavily armed terrorist organization? The stakes could not be higher for McClane, but he did everything humanly possible to achieve the impossible and provide the ending this movie deserves. At one point, McClane was barefoot, walking on broken glass; he was being shot multiple times, and he even used an emergency fire hose in a brilliant move to propel himself outside a window to reach a lower floor and escape a bomb explosion! You know, simple and typical situations one can find themselves in! Haha…
When “Die Hard” was released in 1988, it marked a turning point in the direction of action movies. Slowly, Hollywood became more aware that moviegoers wanted to see more realistic “action stars” in situations that could happen in real life, even if the chances were small. The whole point was that “Die Hard” was a gamble for both Willis and the movie studio, but ultimately, it paid off. It cemented “Die Hard” as one of the best movies of the late 80s and made Willis the newest breakthrough Hollywood actor to watch.
There have been four sequels to “Die Hard.” While the first two sequels did not stray too far from the original pioneering formula, they demonstrated the bankability of ‘Die Hard’ as a franchise long before the term “franchise” became common in the movie industry.
On a more humorous side note, I tallied the number of F-bombs, curse words, and colorful language I heard in “Die Hard” when I recently watched it again for this entertainment article. I counted close to 60 if my memory serves me correctly, and I am impressed by that. Now, when it comes to the kill count, how many bad guys were killed? More than fifty of them met their end with a bullet or were killed in a very clever way thanks to McClane. Now, if that does not make Bruce Willis a certified “action star’ of a newer breed at the time, I do not know what will.
Before I forget, there is no denying that “Die Hard”is a Christmas movie. It goes beyond the obvious reasons; it teaches us that saving our loved ones is worth every ounce of sweat, blood, and tears. That is the true spirit of Christmas: ensuring that each time it is that time of the year, they are all still alive to celebrate it with them.
For me, in the final scene of “Die Hard,” when McClane is with his ex-wife again, and you hear “Let it Snow” by Vaughn Monroe playing, it is more than symbolic; it means everything McClane went through was worth it.
And, as McClane would famously say, which is one of the greatest one-liners and his catchphrase, “Yippee-ki-yay, motherf****r!”