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We really couldn't do any of this without you, so thank you. Hello and welcome to a festive edition of Navarra FM. My name is Eleanor Penny and this year we are going to be talking

rogue policemen, broken marriages and a very Christmasy terrorist attack. That's right, we are

talking about the 1988 movie Die Hard. I'm joined by writer, editor, broadcaster and Navarra Media

co-founder James Butler to knock back some proverbial

mulled wine and settle in with this beamoth of Hollywood history. Die Hard, set on Christmas

Eve and hotly debated in its status as bona fide Christmas movie, was released as the Cold War

was drawing to a close, the US economy was floundering, and American media was wrangling with anxieties about the domestic shifts of the mid-century and the nation's changing place in international relations.

Enter Charismatic Everyman John McLean, played by Bruce Willis, hero New York cop who saves the day and saves his marriage

on one magical and rather blood-soaked night in California.

James and I talked about Christianity, masculinity, the Reagan administration,

spectacles of violence and what it means to be a Christmas movie after all.

Okay. spectacles of violence and what it means to be a Christmas movie after all. Mr. Mystery Guest.

Are you still there?

Yeah, I'm still here.

Unless you want to open a front door for me.

No, I'm afraid not.

...