Twentieth Century Fox released Die Hard to theaters on July 20, 1988. John McTiernandirects the film which stars Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, and Bonnie Bedelia. Die Hard Movie Summary Die Hard is not the quintessential American Christmas movie. That claim probably more accurately rests with “It’s a Wonderful Life” or “Miracle on 34th Street” or “A Christmas Story.” And while Die Hard contains some non-traditional Christmas elements like Japanese businessmen, German terrorists, guns, explosions, and fight scenes, Die Hard has, nevertheless, left an indelible mark on holiday-Americana. You see, Die Hard gave us a Christmas greeting that has so permeated American holiday culture that you hear it every time you walk into a department store around the holidays or go to Grandma’s for Christmas dinner or go to Church for midnight mass on Christmas Eve – Yippe kai yay motherfucker. Die Hard is a story about New York cop John McClane, played by Bruce Willis who, at the time was best known as the wise-cracking private investigator David Addison who played opposite an always glowing Cybill Shepard on television’s Moonlighting. Moonlighting ran for a respectable 66 episodes over five seasons and won Emmy’s and Golden Globes and People’s Choice awards. From this, Willis makes the jump to mega-action star. Today that would be like John Krasinski transitioning from quirky Jim Halpert on the Office to Hollywood shoot-em-up boy. Die Hard opens with McClane flying cross-country from New York to Los Angeles on Christmas Eve to visit his estranged wife, Holly Gennero McClane, who took a fancy job with a Japanese corporation in LA. Holly has apparently invited McClane out to LA to rub his face in the glory of her success so that he’ll see how wrong he was for forcing her to be the subservient housewife McClane pushed her to be back in New York. McClane is met at the airport by limo-driver Argyle, who parlayed his success here into a full-time gig as Aristotle on the Howard Hessman led television show, “Head of the Class.” Upon arriving at Holly’s office, the Nakatomi company Christmas party is in full swing, complete with bad hair, bad mustaches, and even worse 80s sweaters. McClane meets Holly’s boss, Mr. Takagi, who takes McClane to Holly’s office to wait for her. There we meet the cocaine-snorting prick Ellis. Why a huge Japanese company like Nakatomi tolerates a prick like Ellis is beyond me. The guy is rude, arrogant, slimy, and fueled solely by glitz and cocaine. No one is sad to see him die later on. John and Holly find some space for John to clean up, and they jump right back into “let’s argue about our lousy marriage” mode. In the midst of this argument, Holly is taken away to make a speech at the company party. While John continues to clean up, a hoarde of German terrorists with semi-automatic weapons seize control of the party. McClane escapes thanks to the cliché’d appearance of a couple screwing in the office next door, which diverts the terrorists’ attention just enough for him to run to the exit and up the stairs (but before he thinks to grab his shoes). We learn soon thereafter that in this pre-internet era, a terrorist can learn everything about a person except what he looks like. Thank god for pictures on the internet now. The leader of the terrorists is the very-well-dressed Severus Snape. Instead of whipping out his wand and conjuring up some imperius charm on Takagi to get the codes to the on-site vault to steal $640 million in negotiable bearer bonds, he asks Takagi to reveal the codes.