Bad Santa

11/29/03 - Review

Billy Bob Thornton stars as Willie T. Stokes, a shopping mall Santa by day and an old school safecracker by night.  However, whether its day or night, Willie intoxicates himself with hard liquor and cartons of cigarettes as he is spouting of expletives and having sex with every girl he meets.  For the past seven years, Willie and his trusty sidekick, Marcus (Tony Cox), work together as a Santa and Elf team at malls across the country in order to get access to the mall’s safe.  Willie has stated that he wants out of the business, but each year he is up to his head in debt so he as little choice but to hook up with Marcus.

They take their less than dynamic duo to Phoenix where they can do it one more time.  This time however, they may have met their match.  A mall manager (John Ritter) is breathing down their necks and watching their every move just looking for a reason to fire them for Willie’s foul mouth and his extracurricular activities in the ladies big and tall department.  Willie and Marcus eventually attract the attention of the head of mall security (Bernie Mac) who seems to have picked up on their little scam.  To make matters worse, an eight year old boy believes that Willie is the real Santa Claus so he becomes infatuated with him. 

Willie takes the kid home one night after having a little Santa fun in his beat up old car with the local bar’s bartender.  At the kids house he learns that the father is in jail and the mom is off saving the World in her own right so the kid lives there with his senile grandmother.  The kid hopes that Willie, or in this case Santa, will bring him presents this year since he has not received any in two years.  Willie shacks up in this new house just long enough to complete the job at the mall.  Willie hates kids but this special boy is showing Willie what life is all about, which leads Willie to question everything. 

Just like the TV trailer states, this movie is for adults.  With its vulgar language and its total lack of human compassion, Bad Santa is the funniest comedy I have seen since the summer.  The movie definitely fired on all cylinders to give a truly memorable experience. 

The word Santa Claus brings a spark into every young kid’s eyes so it’s only appropriate that Santa would be the complete opposite of what everybody thought.  In this movie, Santa hates kids, comes to work drunk, and could care less about Christmas or anybody else.  When he ditches the Santa outfit, he puts on the criminal outfit as he and his little elf knock off safes across the country.  With that being said, the story is very simple and easy to get into.  What makes it great are the performances by the actors.  They made this movie. 

It seemed that every other word spoken on screen contained vulgar languages so you might want to keep the young ones away.  Some of the best moments were between Thornton and the eight year old boy, Thurman Merman (Ethan Phillips).  The other real treat was between Cox and Thornton as they yelled back and forth at each other for the whole movie.  They have a nice love-hate relationship and it showed. 

Billy Bob Thornton is the best damn Santa Claus ever.  He did a fantastic job as the big man in red that could care less about anybody or anything except himself and his booze, well and maybe a young girl’s body.  You can almost feel the pain that he has to put up with just to make the big score.  That doesn’t compare to how funny he was as a drunken Santa who shoves kids off of his lap.  He gets aggravated very easily so don’t bother him on his lunch break.

Bernie Mac was underused I thought but for the time he was there he brought a dark comedic tone to the setting.  His scenes with the late John Ritter were hilarious because Ritter has a straight business man persona and Mac, well is the opposite.  Tony Cox was a great complement to Thornton.  I couldn’t count all of the funny scenes that he a Thornton had together. 

I have to give the props to Ethan Phillips for doing a good job as the young kid.  The director couldn’t make him look any more pathetic then what he did.  He was an overweight kid with no friends and basically no family.  He hasn’t had any presents in over two years and his grandma is completely senile.  Where Thornton shows no compassion for this boy, the audience does because of the all the crap he takes.  But because of this boy, Thornton’s character gains a new perspective on life and in the end changes his ways.  It brings hope to all of us.    

After you take your kids to see the latest holiday family picture, put them to bed and then go see this movie.  Finally, a Christmas movie for adults that is hilarious and at times inspiring.  All of the characters shine in this fast past comedy that delivers the goods, even if it drops many F-Bombs.  After seeing this movie, I will definitely be looking at shopping mall Santa’s in a different light.  

Grade

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