Mediaite Presents Our Favorite Christmas Holiday-Themed Movies
Die Hard and Die Hard 2: Die Harder – Mediaite Political Editor And White House Correspondent Tommy Christopher
This list presented me with a bit of a dilemma, since Die Hard is my favorite Christmas movie, but Die Hard 2, also a Christmas movie, is my favorite Die Hard movie. It’s a weird paradox that threatens the fabric of space-time, but easily solved by picking both.
The first Die Hard is a work of Yuletide genius, from its forward-thinking use of Christmas in Hollis on the soundtrack, to the hilarious Let it Snow-as-suspense music score. In between, there are indelible moments of Merry Mayhem, like the world’s first corpse Christmas card with the anti-Hallmark sentiment “Now I have a machine gun. Ho Ho ho,” or the iconically excessive 80’s Christmas party, complete with big hair, blow, and automatic gunfire-interrupted desk coitus.
Bruce Willis‘ hero cop John McClane plays second fiddle to a memorable cast of characters: Alan Rickman‘s “exceptional thief” Hans Gruber, Reginald VelJohnson‘s Twinkie-snarfing desk jockey Sgt. Al Powell, Bonnie Bedelia‘s icy Working Girl Holly McClane, supportive chauffer Argyle, power nerd Theo, deadpan FBI agents Johnson and Johnson, gonzo TV reporter Dick Thornburg, ill-fated sleazeball Ellis, and that henchman who looks like Huey Lewis. After umpteen viewings of this film, they’re like family to me, and I’d referee a turkey dinner with them anytime.
Die Hard 2 goes a little lighter on the Christmas touches, but as a political junkie, it’s close to my heart. Not only is it set in Washington, DC, and costars former Republican Senator Fred Thompson at his molasses-voiced best, but it also draws its villains from thinly-veiled Reagan-era allegory. William Sadler plays Oliver North stand-in Colonel Stuart, a naked Tai-Chi doing badass who’s the villain Ed Harris needed to be in The Rock. He’s joined by a team of former Spec-Ops mercs that includes a pre-Terminator 2 Robert Patrick, all-star character actor Vondie Curtis Hall, and comic John Leguizamo in his shadow career as militaristic bit player. Their mission is to free an imprisoned dictator who financed his anti-commie revolution with drug money.
John McClane is hindered, this time, by a gaggle of colorfully clueless good guys led by Dennis Franz (he may be Andy Sipowicz to most, but he’ll always be Det. Sal Benedetto to me), an airport police Captain with a comically pre-9/11 mindset. Just when you think this movie can’t get any more awesome, Good Times patriarch John Amos shows up to put Franz in his place, and mop up for the airport police. Bonus thrill for Star Trek fans who eschew the later, lamer TV incarnations: Enterprise Transporter Chief Colm Meany dies in a horrific fireball, like his warm and fuzzy Trek series should have.
If there’s a flaw in Die Hard 2, it’s the existence of the series’ Jar-Jar Binks, airport gremlin Marv. The least deserving survivor of any Die Hard film, I think any fan would agree he should have been slaughtered on the Annex Skywalk with the rest of that cocky SWAT team.
Die Hard 2 also has the most satisfying twists of the entire series, and wonderful time-capsule moments like McClane’s wisecrack about the cutting-edge tech of the moment, fending off the advances of an airport employee with “Just the fax, ma’am. Just the fax.” Such future-shock moments are rendered far less jarring by crack filmmaking that still holds up.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
