The complete and total opposite of a Wonderful Life.
Written: Dec 24 '03
Product Rating:
Pros: Profanely hilarious; gloriously non-PC
Cons: Might be a bit too...oppressively raunchy for many.
The Bottom Line: If you're sort of a Grinch, or you just need a brief respite from all the sugarplums for a few minutes, here's a nasty and joyously caustic good time.
Even the most cynical of bastards love a little something about the Holiday Season. It could just be the silly songs or the happily bustling malls, but after a while (say like, two weeks before Christmas actually arrives) it starts to get a bit grating. One can only see the same TV commercials and offer chipper little "Happy Holidays!" greetings to everyone under the sun before it all seems a little...forced. For those who could use an acidic shower of anti-schmaltz, I heartily recommend "Bad Santa".
Good dark comedies are a rare breed. Rarer still is a black comedy that remains consistently bitter and nasty throughout, as it's usually much easier to lighten things up in an effort to appease the multiplex masses. If a movie can stun you with its audacious behavior and offer up a heaping dose of nasty big laughs...well that's a movie that probably deserves to be seen.
Sadly I predict a rough road at the box-office for Terry Zwigoff's Bad Santa; it's certainly not what one could define as a "crowdpleaser". But those with a taste for humor of a profane and questionable nature, here's one you'll probably dig.
Billy Bob Thornton plays an unbelievable lowlife named Willie. Willie and his diminutive partner Marcus (the hilarious Tony Cox) have an annual scam: Willie's the Santa, Marcus is the elf, and a new mall every winter is the latest mark. During the day our devious duo (barely) entertain the greedy little moppets lined up at the mall queues; on Christmas Eve they break into the shopping center and rob it blind. As the flick opens, the scam has earned our anti-heroes well over $100,000; but when next Christmas rolls around, Willie and Marcus meet up in Phoenix to get down to business once again.
Logically there are all sorts of bizarre goofballs to contend with: a repressed mall manager (the late great John Ritter, offering a few solid laughs to remember him by), an opportunistic security chief (Bernie Mac, reveling in the vulgarity of it all), an anonymous sadsack chubby kid (Brett Kelly, sweet in a pathetic way) and a sexy barmaid (Lauren Graham) with a fetish for St. Nick.
It's all very anti-consumer and decidedly NON-P.C. - and that's the main reason Bad Santa works so well. Inject any sort of sunny platitude and everything that came before is negated. Thornton and Cox are clearly having a lot of fun as they push the envelope of good taste, Bernie Mac and John Ritter have a few truly funny conversations together, there's a whole lot of laughs courtesy of good ol' fashioned shock-value, and everything ends in a satisfying way without having to resort to outright bullpoop.
Bad Santa certainly won't be everyone's cup of tea. It's logical that some people might not appreciate a comedy in which a young kid is constantly cussed and yelled at; others might not like the fact that Christmas itself is treated rather shabbily. But if you're sort of a Grinch, or you just need a brief respite from all the sugarplums and the tree ornaments for 90 minutes, Bad Santa is a nasty and joyously caustic good time.
And trust me on one thing: this is NOT a Santa flick you should bring your kids to.
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