Warning: minor SPOILERS for Champagne Problems are ahead!
I’m by no means the target audience for Christmas romantic comedies, but every now and then I’ll check one out if the mood strikes during the festive season. That’s how I found myself streaming Champagne Problems with my Netflix subscription just a few days ago, and I’m certainly not alone in doing so, as it’s still ranking as the platform’s #1 movie in the United States. And yet, 48 hours later, I haven’t been thinking about the actual plot of this 2025 movie starring Minka Kelly and Tom Wozniczka, but how it delivers a hilarious take on Die Hard villain Hans Gruber.
How Champagne Problems References Die Hard
There’s a scene in the latter half of Champagne Problems where Sean Amsing’s Roberto Salazar and Flula Borg’s Otto Moller, two of the competitors for Chateau Cassell, tell Minka Kelly’s Sydney Price what they’ll be doing for Christmas. Otto plans to watch Die Hard with his family, but the movie is considered a “tragedy” in Germany. Specifically, the German people see the late Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber as “deeply misunderstood,” with Otto telling Sydney:
To us, Hans Gruber was more like Robin Hood, stealing from the greedy corporate overlords. It was the Nakatomi Corporation who put its employees at risk over what was mere pocket change to them.
Ok, you’re off to a fantastic start, Otto. Then, when Sydney brings up how Robin Hood gave to the poor, Otto counters with this:
We don’t know what Hans had planned to do with all that money. Perhaps he’s going to open up some schools.
You know what? If Hans Gruber wanted to use $640 million in bearer bonds to build schools, that’s an admirable goal, even if his execution left much to be desired. Speaking of which, what about Bruce Willis’ John McClane, the man who foiled Gruber’s scheme? Here’s what Otto says when Sydney mentions him:
Oh, excuse me, that trigger-happy cowboy? John McClane was the cause of all that chaos with his ‘yippee-ki-yay, mother-fathers.’ Hans Gruber was a gentleman thief.
Now that’s not to say that Otto thinks Hans Gruber is infallible. When Sydney astutely points out that the villain blew up Nakatomi Plaza, he simply said, ‘Ok, well, nobody’s perfect.’ Oh yeah, sure, we can just gloss over that, no problem.
This Is A Wild Way To View Die Hard
Die Hard inevitably gets a lot more chatter this time of year due to the never-ending debate about whether it counts as a Christmas movie. But in 2025, I’m cracking up about Champagne Problems using Flula Borg’s character to pass along this wild interpretation of the beloved action movie. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t agree with it at all, but it is hilarious to think of this bizarro take on Die Hard, where Hans Gruber was looking out for the people, and John McClane got in the way of this noble mission.
This reminds me of How I Met Your Mother, where Barney Stinson argued that Johnny Lawrence was the true hero of The Karate Kid. But at least that take arguably gets a little stronger now that Cobra Kai has depicted Johnny in a more sympathetic light. I don’t know how many people sincerely think Hans Gruber is a good guy in Die Hard, although I suppose you can give this perspective a test run by streaming the movie with your Disney+ subscription or Hulu subscription.
Champagne Problems is one of the handful of new Christmas movies to enjoy on the 2025 Netflix release schedule. So while that Die Hard reference is at the forefront of my mind, you should watch the rom-com in its entirety to see what you think. Also, while the Die Hard Christmas movie debate rages on, let’s not forget that fellow action classic First Blood also qualifies for that classification.