Bad Santa

Review by Jason Donner

Billy Bob Thornton is Santa… Okay, he’s not really Santa, but he plays him in a mall. Basically, this Bad Santa – as the title infers – is a complete skid mark of a human being… he shows up drunk, he hates kids, and swears like Britney Spears backstage.

Willie, as he’s called, also has a secret… in addition to being the worst Santa ever, he and his little elf buddy (played awesomely by Tony Cox) are also thieves who, on Christmas Eve night make it a habit of robbing the mall they are working at blind.

Willie and Marcus (the elf) make their way to Phoenix for another Christmas caper, but things get complicated when the mall owner (John Ritter in his last film role) and the mall security chief become suspicious of them. Willie goes to his motel room one night and sees someone going through his stuff. Scared, he cons his way into the home of an eight-year-old who really thinks he’s the real Santa.

In the end, I’m sure you’ve guessed, everyone discovers the true meaning of Christmas.

This is certainly a novel idea for a Christmas movie, I will say that. I don’t remember hearing the word “fuck” in a Christmas setting so much since I watched the uncut and red-hot unrated edition of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The problem with this movie is that it spends a lot of time being crude and being crass thinking that would be a great way to be funny. However, the big mistake there is that crassness is never a good substitute for funny and, as a result, the movie largely comes off as mean-spirited and cruel.

But not all is lost. As I said, this is a novel idea for a movie and there is a lot of genuine humor sprinkled all throughout. John Ritter is hilarious as the pansy little mall owner and Bernie Mac plays a badass security guy who also gets quite a few subdued chuckles.

Billy Bob and Tony are a pretty fun pair to watch and, yeah, even though Bad Santa comes off as mean-spirited the unpredictability of the story serves as a great asset – even though the final act of the movie is predictable as hell.

He may be a Bad Santa, but this is a pretty good movie…