Bad Santa

Billy Bob Thornton doesn't care if you're naughty or nice... in Bad Santa.

'Santa is even-tempered. Santa does not hit children over the head who kick him. Santa uses the term folks rather than Mommy and Daddy because of all the broken homes. Santa does not have a three-martini lunch. Santa does not borrow money from store employees. Santa wears a good deodorant.' (Jenny Zink - To employees of Western Temporary Services, world's largest supplier of Santa Clauses, NY Times 21 Nov 84) Unfortunately the makers of Bad Santa must have mislaid this piece of advice when it came to drafting the movie's script.

If anything they set about ruining the spirit of Christmas by making a festive mix of alcoholism, midgets with attitude and a woman with a Santa fetish. Trust me, next time you here the familiar 'Ho-ho-ho!' Christmas cheer will be the last thing that comes to mind! It seems that Mr Claus has read about so many instances of wrong-doing in his book of who's naughty or nice that the little whippersnappers' behaviour seems to have rubbed off on him. If you ever wanted to see Kris Kringle take a swig of vodka, puff on cigarettes like there was no tomorrow or fornicate then Bad Santa is the film for you. The movie plays like a cross between South Park and Miracle on 34th Street and will have you convulsing with laughter in your seat. Be warned, if you go see this movie then expect to get a lump of coal in your Christmas stocking.

Bad Santa follows the sorry life of Willie (Billy Bob Thornton), a deadbeat safecracker who spends thirty days of every year dressed as Santa Claus as part of an elaborate scam. Unlike Kris Kringle who delivers gifts to children on the 25th of December every year, this festive fool sets about robbing the department store where he's worked this year. Aided by the rudest dwarf you could ever meet, Marcus (Tony Cox), they dastardly duo make off with a stack of cash every year. Willie is starting to slack in his old age and his growing alcohol addiction is seriously starting to affect his performance. Rather than being nice to the kids, he's lucky enough to get through a single day without making a child cry.

With a secret stash of booze and cigarettes Willie tries to struggle through each day, processing kids like a conveyor belt and retiring to the changing rooms every so often to fulfil his fetish for the larger woman. Things really get messed up when a strange kid starts following him around and eventually forms a cornerstone of his life. Balancing this little weirdo, his day job and a Santa groupie eventually takes its toll, but not before Thornton manages to simultaneously disgust and entertain the audience.

If you're a fan of South Park like me then you'll think Bad Santa is one of the funniest films of the year, this is certainly one movie that would make the baby Jesus cry. The imagination shown by the scriptwriters is fantastic, whether it's the Santa fetish or seeing three males rolling around in testicular agony Bad Santa has adolescent humour in spades. Men and women will find it equally humorous as long as they've got a sense of humour; just make sure to leave your sense of political correctness at the door. Every character involved basically turns a stereotype on its head with the end result of some side-splitting humour.

You'd think that Dan Aykroyd did untold damage to children when his character donned the famous red costume in Trading Places. Billy Bob Thornton surpasses his effort though and goes above and beyond the call of duty for the sake of social deviancy. Let's just say that this isn't a movie you'd want your child to see, it'll put the final nail in the coffin for poor old Santa. The most impressive thing about Bad Santa is that it doesn't resort to the Grinch routine where the bad guy ultimately sees the error of his ways and redeems himself. If anything Thornton's character becomes a little bit more twisted when he tries to make the world a better place and Bad Santa is much better for it.

Billy Bob Thornton has made a career for himself by playing some rather oddball characters, some may even argue that the man himself is more zany than any of his on screen roles. Whatever your personal opinion of the actor may be, it is generally acknowledged that Thornton has the most striking screen presence in Hollywood today. He doesn't look like your typical Tinseltown star, but the actor also comes across as a rather complicated man on top of that. It should come as no surprise then that Thornton would agree to play a deadbeat Santa and the role fits just like a glove. The opening scene sees our deadbeat Santa slouched over the bar looking more like Oscar the Grouch rather than Kris Kringle.

Thornton is hilarious from start to finish and the audience warms to him despite defiling his Santa costume and ruining many a child's upbringing. He is the instrument of the twisted humour that runs through Bad Santa and the actor isn't afraid to earn himself a permanent place on the naughty list for all eternity. His character, Willie, gleefully takes advantage of every situation he finds himself and even during what might be called his redemption, Thornton still manages to offend.

It cannot be argued that Thornton is the shining light in this movie, but the rug is almost pulled up from underneath him by a rather unlikely source. Meet the kid (Brett Kelly) who is the ultimate bully victim: a fat kid with low self-confidence and no common sense. The cast pretty much walk all over him during the whole film and it almost comes as a surprise when we learn his name towards the end of the film. The audience, in its ignorance, unconsciously becomes a bully also and never even bothers wondering what the weird kid is called. Kelly manages to get under your skin from the word go and is like a bad rash that you can't get rid of, turning up in the most unlikely places and just plain freaking the viewer out.

The young actor plays dumb so well that you almost think that he's simple minded, in fact I showed empathy for Thornton's character when he flips out at the imbecile. The rest of the cast are just as weird as Wille and the kid, letting Hollywood sink to new depths in the process. Tony Cox plays Marcus the foul mouthed dwarf who pretty much makes the viewer lose all sympathy for the disabled, but offers some great insight into drinking and fighting with small people (let's just say their height gives them a bit of an advantage when it comes to hitting men!) Lauren Graham, Bernie Mac and John Ritter round off the motley crew, with Graham as the pick of the bunch since her performance gives sexual perversion a new twist.

The cast bounces off each other offering up some of the most surreal situations I've seen in a long time and even I was left gasping 'Oh no they didn't!' The scriptwriting team of John Requa and Glenn Ficarra take a leaf from the minds of Chris Rock, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, guaranteeing two first class tickets to hell upon their deaths. You'll laugh, you cry because of the fact that you were laughing in the first place and then laugh some more since you're past the stage of caring. At the end of the day Bad Santa makes for plenty of laughs albeit in the face of festive humour and is sure to be compulsory Christmas viewing for me every year hereafter.

Piaras Kelly
Editor, Kikizo Movies