The Funkhouser Holiday Action Movie Countdown: Die Hard

Don't get me wrong, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Elf, A Christmas Story, It's a Wonderful Life, and the litany of holiday movies that grow with each passing year are all fine and good. But they all lack a certain amount of visceral action to keep you on the edge of your seat and break up the monotony that can occur when you are with the same group of people for days on end. In order to breakup the holiday madness I've prepared a list of action movies to watch this Christmas that will crank your adrenaline up to 11 and we kick it off with the ultimate intersection of action and cheer:

For the person who needs a nearly perfect Christmas Movie: Die Hard

So what do you get for the man/woman who has everything? How about the best Christmas movie of all time? Die Hard. So to build this argument I suppose we need to establish two points: A) That Die Hard is a nearly perfect movie and B) That Die Hard is a Christmas movie. What makes a great movie? First you need to have strong relatable leads. John McClane is the resourceful, cunning, everyman that finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or perhaps the perfect place at the perfect time depending on your perspective. His wife,  Holly McClane, is a smart, independent, woman who is anything but a damsel in distress. The bad guy, Hans Gruber is an iconic villain with wit and plenty of smarm. He is a worthy foil to John McClane.  Next, those leads need to be well-written and quotable. Die Hard has those quotes in spades."Yipee ki-yay" "Ladies and Gentleman" "Come out to the coast, we'll get together, have a few laughs..." the move is filled with expertly delivered quotes that have permeated the mainstream. Finally and perhaps most importantly you have to have a strong plot. From Under Siege (Die Hard on a Boat), to Air Force One (Die Hard on a Plane), to White House Down (Die Hard: D.C. Edition)  the plot of Die Hard has been mined and retooled in the decades following its release. If you have those three elements then just competent direction and editing should be enough to net you a solid movie. Die Hard's cinematography and editing set the standard and place it as the still reigning king of action cinema. The movie blends all of those elements  into something transcendent, something that is endlessly rewatchable no matter what time of the year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0si6wsZWn6g And now for the greatest debate since "Is a hotdog a hamburger" gripped the nation, is Die Hard a Christmas movie?  Well just what is a Christmas movie? I define a Christmas movie as one containing these elements: family, giving, a heart-warming message, and by definition, Christmas. In Die Hard, John McClane is reunited with his estranged family on Christmas eve, illustrates the very valuable lesson that it is better to give hot lead than to receive, and delivers the heart-warming message/Christmas miracle of one man's triumph over impossible odds. So maybe it's not the Christmas message of...oh let's say 'A Christmas Carol' but the end of the movie still leaves you filled with joy. Some would argue that Die Hard isn't a Christmas movie because the holiday is not central to the plot and with that I strongly disagree. Sure, if you took the Christmas setting and Christmas music out of Die Hard you still have a strong plot for an action movie (See the countless clones in the paragraph above). But with the Christmas setting added in, the film carries an extra emotional weight and higher stakes that propel it from good to great. Christmas gives John a strong reason to be visiting his family. It explains why the police are shorthanded and quick to ignore the danger. It stirs withing the viewer our own personal battles that we have to overcome in order to make the Christmas happen within our own families. Its not just a great movie set at Christmas but a great Christmas movie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I13TFFL8AOA