Review of Bad Santa (2003) by Christopher S — 11 Dec 2011

Day 10 of Our 25 days of Christmas Movies Marathon Countdown keeps on keeping on with the cult classic...."Bad Santa".

To say "Bad Santa" ain't your typical Christmas story is an under statement. Bad Santa is a rare comedy, it is without borders or boundaries. There is no romantic sub-plot, nobody learns a lesson, it's not satire & it's not parody - it is just balls out crude comedy at it's finest. And I'm a huge fan of crude comedy which makes `Bad Santa' being so side-splittingly funny with this material all the more a triumph. It does so by laying out the most basic tenants of furious comedy: Great actors playing funny characters, doing funny things in an overall funny and original story. The movie is wonderfully free of the usual studio convoluted narrative that tries to reach further than it can grasp. `Bad Santa' knows that a drunken, abusive, suicidal, sex-crazed thief is nothing to write home about, but a drunken, abusive, suicidal, sex-crazed thief masquerading as a department store Santa and thrown against the ironic backdrop of Christmas cheer - now that's comedy!

Billy Bob Thornton is perfect as Willie, our Santa who is just as bad a thief as he is a Santa by the way. Our anti-hero constantly redraws the line and jumps over it just when we think he can't sink any lower. Also thrown in to the mix is the requisite cute kid who hilariously seems to think he's in a different movie, believing this Santa is the real deal despite seeing "Santa" rob him blind and call the boy `a retard' to his face. The Kid is clearly in a delusional world all of his own, written so cartoonishly absurd that even while we feel for him - and desperately hope that Willie will show him some compassion and fear that he won't - it's hard to take him as a serious human being. Tony Cox is equally hilarious as Willie's criminal mastermind - Marcus, a black "midget" who can never get fired because department stores don't want to be protested during the holidays. Marcus is like the angry conscious that has broken off from Willie years ago but still hovers around him like an orbiting satellite trying to talk sense into him. He says what the audience is thinking a lot of times in no uncertain terms. The late Bernie Mac is also hilariously perfect in his role, Lauren Graham and the late John Ritter (whom the film is dedicated to) are also pitched at the top of their game in a comedic frenzy.

Produced and created by Joel and Ethan Coen, all be it helmed by director Terry Zwigoff, this movie is colored more with "the Coen brother touch" (caper comedies like "Raising Arizona", "Fargo" & "The Big Lebowski") than their recent studio dud `Intolerable Cruelty`. Bits of dialogue and scenes of hilarious pointlessness ring true to their style. Zwigoff keeps the narrative on target and moving briskly - with some well placed Christmas music in there for a nice flavor. Thornton, more alive than in his last several movies combined, is clearly having a blast with it all. He is really the driver that makes this potential disaster sing.

Without the Christmas holiday there would surely have no `Bad Santa' as it is more of an rebellion, best viewed with that eye of irony, than a tried and true Christmas movie. A rare slap-in-the-face to political correctness by writers that seem to view Christmas and Christmas movies as inherently conformist and fully of phony, sap-happy holiday cheer. A movie that dares to present the idea that everybody's misery and problems don't turn to lollipops and candy canes when the calendar rolls over to December - and has a little fun with it. For those that didn't get it: this was a Christmas movie only in the sense that `Gremlins' and `Die Hard' are "Christmas movies". Which is great because we need that kind of change of pace. `Bad Santa' was a refreshing joy to watch. Audiences will either love it or hate it.