Bad Santa (2003)
Here's the test: Every time Billy
Bob Thornton, as the titular bad Santa here, has a
child placed upon his knee, he looks at the imp and
snarls, "What the fuck do you want?" If that's funny
to you, you'll love "Bad Santa." To me, that is hilarious.
I laughed my ass off at Thornton's creepy, alcoholic,
stinky, disheveled, snotty Santa. Any grown-up who
lived in the 70's when seemingly all department store
Santa's were played by alcoholic vets from the unemployment
line will surely get the joke here. It's fucking funny.
But "Bad Santa" also has a nice
script, good acting, well done direction and a bit
of a crooked heart. The main idea is fleshed out wonderfully,
from an idea by the Coen brothers, in a script by
John Requa and Glenn Ficarra. The direction by Terry
Zwigoff isn't as compelling as his "Crumb" or as consummate
as his work in "Ghost World," but, then again, perhaps
it doesn't need to be. It's easy to see the artist
is slumming a bit here. Still, Zwigoff captures the
mood of the film perfectly and elevates it above the
standard low-grade experience one would expect from
such a piece. Zwigoff also allows his actors enough
room to move within the piece and present real and
fleshy characters.
The script even finds room for a
nice little bit of holiday heart. Granted, Thornton's
con-man's interaction with a young, naive and - let's
face it - fucked-up boy are about as wickedly funny
and politically incorrect as the rest of the film.
But the young actor here (Brett Kelly) as well as
the consummate Thornton provide as much chemistry
as any boy and mentor relationship that has ever existed
in film. These are damaged characters with desperate,
downright lousy lives that end up needing each other.
Watching the absurd, ignorant, incapable con-man that
Thornton plays trying to figure out how he can help
a young man with zero coping skill, mainly out of
frustration and bitterness, is unlike anything we've
seen in a Christmas film before.
I've known that Christmas is a crock
of shit from the time I was 20. Hell, anyone over
20 who doesn't know this is an idiot. "Bad Santa"
isn't about a Scrooge or a Grinch who steals the heart
of Christmas from good people. Here, the victims are
the greedy store owners of cheesy, seedy strip mall
stores. Here, Thornton's Santa actually helps a absurdly
ignorant kid. Albeit, it is in a perverse and totally
politically incorrect way - but that's the joy of
it. "Bad Santa" is about a crooked man who had a crooked
heart and had it straightened out by being loved and
being needed. What could be more in the spirit of
Christmas than that?
Notes:
Also with Lauren Graham, Chloris
Leachman, John Ritter (in his last film appearance)
and Bernie Mac.
Mirimax wisely played up the controversy
surrounding this film being released by parent company
Disney to great effect. The film was number 6 at the
box office during the 2003 Thanksgiving weekend.
Viewed in Austin in November 2003.
