'The Hunt for Red October' is a Christmas movie
Dive with me into a post that will submarine your 'Die Hard' theory
It’s called The Hunt for Red October.
It’s set in November.
It’s perfect for December.
Yes, I know the fashionable theory is that Die Hard is a Christmas movie, mostly because its fictional plot unfolds at an L.A. holiday party on Dec. 24.
That was a clever argument — five years ago. Today, it’s the sort of supposedly subversive take that fuels a thousand podcasts.
If you truly want to stake out fresh tracks on this winter holiday — and to wow your friends and family with a perfect movie night — why not pick the next film from director John McTiernan?
The Hunt for Red October was released two years after Die Hard. It trades the warmth of nighttime Los Angeles for the snowy hills of Soviet Russia and the frigid depths of the ocean.
And it is a terrific thriller, available to watch online right now.
This 1990 classic gives me Cold War-era chills. But the more I type, the more I’m warming up to the obvious Christmas connections; below, I’ve listed out six reasons why The Hunt for Red October is a film made for this season.
And no, I’m not bleary from holiday travel and half-crazed after several days with no child care. Why do you ask?
Spoilers follow, obviously.
1. The Hunt for Red October centers on a white-bearded man traveling the world
Stop me if this sounds familiar. Captain Marko Ramius emerges from the Arctic Circle on a mission to quickly cross the ocean and slip his way into another country.
Ramius isn’t exactly Santa, unless you prefer your Claus with a Scottish accent and a body count. But Ramius comes bearing gifts for Americans: a team of defectors and knowledge of the Soviet nuclear submarine program. (And just maybe, handing over the Soviet sub itself.)
2. Everyone is trying to track this white-bearded man
Do you enjoy the real-life NORAD Santa tracker, which deploys the power of the U.S. military to find a famous sleigh and its reindeer?
Then you’ll love the character of Seaman Jones, who spends much of The Hunt for Red October attempting to locate Ramius and his sneaky submarine.
And Jones is not alone — viewers are treated to frenetic meetings by world leaders, all focused on the jolly old sub captain and trying to figure out where Ramius will show up next. If only they’d thought to offer him milk and cookies!
3. It’s the stuff of Christmas travel nightmares
You think you had a bad day trying to connect from DCA to ORD to LAX, stuck in the middle seat of the last row, in a frenetic gambit to make it home for the holidays?
Try being CIA analyst Jack Ryan, the hero of The Hunt for Red October, as he goes from London to Washington, D.C., and back to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean — sometimes quite abruptly.
I’ll never complain about a delayed flight again!
4. It’s also filled with awkward gatherings of thrown-together people
We’ve all experienced the slightly uncomfortable holiday meal, where distant relatives and acquaintances try to make small talk for a few hours.
But put yourself in the shoes of Jack Ryan, as he bumbles his way through tense, surprise meetings at the White House and on several vessels in the middle of the ocean, culminating with a face-off on the Soviet submarine itself.
Sometimes it feels like we’re speaking different languages at the holidays. In The Hunt for Red October, they actually are! …
… Ok, this one’s kind of a reach. Let’s move on.
5. Adults have to lie about what’s really happening
The Hunt for Red October is built on deception. Ramius lies again and again to his Soviet crew: they’re sailing to Cuba. (They’re not.) There was a radiation leak. (There wasn’t.) He’s going to sink the submarine. (In reality, he’s going to hand it over to the Americans.)
Then, the CIA spreads its own lie: a U.S. torpedo hit the Red October. (It didn’t.)
By the film’s conclusion, the U.S. national security adviser and the Soviet ambassador are both bound up in lies that allow their countries to publicly maintain the status quo.
Lying to preserve a convenient fiction? Gee, sounds familiar!
6. The movie ends with our hero bringing a present back to his family
Having saved the world from inadvertent nuclear war, or at least helped the CIA capture a Soviet submarine, Jack Ryan flies home to London with a new toy in tow: a giant teddy bear, requested by his daughter.1
There’s an Internet theory that this is the same bear that Bruce Willis’ character was bringing as a present in Die Hard. It’s not. Too bad; a regifting subplot would cinch this film’s Christmas connections, I think.
Happy holidays! And watch The Hunt for Red October!
And if there’s a better unexpected Christmas film, I’m all ears.
The original book by Tom Clancy is far more explicit about its holiday connections: Jack Ryan is trying to find a Barbie for his daughter and make it home for Christmas.
I very much like the idea of uncovering "unexpected Christmas films."
Hilarious. I think I’ll stream it sometime today in the roster.