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Violent Night
For those whose favorite Christmas movie is Die Hard, a whimsical and bloody black comedy/action adventure called Violent Night could become a new favorite Christmas movie tradition.
The 2022 film opens with Santa Claus getting drunk at a bar during a break on his Christmas Eve duties. Santa leaves the bar and arrives at the home of a very wealthy family who, while enjoying the homemade cookies and skim milk they left out for him, are actually being held hostage by a group of terrorists who are after a whole lot of money in the basement of the mansion. The reindeer desert Santa and it is up to him to save this family.
Screenwriters Pat Casey and Josh Miller (Sonic the Hedgehog) really strike gold here with an intricate screenplay that borrows elements from several movies, other than Die Hard and give them just enough tweaking that we accept what turns out to be a thinly disguised homage to films like Home Alone, Knives Out, Miracle on 34th Street, and The Santa Clause.
There were a couple of minor plot points that were hard to legitimize. Primarily, number one son of the wealthy family, Jason, gives his daughter, Trudy, a walkie talkie and tells her it's a direct line to Santa Claus. Later on in the film, the corresponding walkie talkie is found on the body of a terrorist that Santa Claus takes out and maybe I missed how he ended up with the walkie talkie, but falling into Santa's hands, it allows Santa and Trudy to communicate throughout the film even though they're separated physically for most of the story like Bruce Willis and Reginald VelGleason in Die Hard.
What I really loved about this movie is the sometimes hard to swallow hook for the story that this guy is actually Santa Claus. We assume when we see him at the bar getting drunk that he is some sort of department store Santa, sick of his job because he's bewailing the ingratitude of today's children, something that was hard to argue with, but the story never wavers from the fact that this guy is really Santa Claus (though a new backstory provided for the character legitimizes his John McLane tendencies). Lost it when he got mad at the reindeer for deserting him in his time of danger and berating them again for conveniently showing up when the danger is over.
Director Tommy Wirkola mounts this story on a grand scale with bloody and unrelenting violence not expected in a Christmas movie. A Christmas tree star becomes quite the deadly weapon here, as does a fake icicle from a nativity scene. There are some great set pieces, my favorites being Santa's "nice" and "naughty" lists.
One of Hollywood's most underrated actors, David Harbour is Oscar-worthy as Santa, a role that requires gut busting machismo and undeniable sensitivity. Action movie performances rarely get Oscar nominations but Harbour is absolutely superb here, exploring every nook and cranny of this character and John Leguizamo scores as Scrooge, Leguizamo's first straight up villain since playing Tybalt in Baz Luhrman's Romeo and Juliet, Alex Hassell made the most of his role as Jason and have to give a shout out to the long absent from the screen Beverly D'Angelo as the bitchy family matriarch. What can I say, this movie was all kinds of fun and had me on the edge of my seat. Well done.
For those whose favorite Christmas movie is Die Hard, a whimsical and bloody black comedy/action adventure called Violent Night could become a new favorite Christmas movie tradition.
The 2022 film opens with Santa Claus getting drunk at a bar during a break on his Christmas Eve duties. Santa leaves the bar and arrives at the home of a very wealthy family who, while enjoying the homemade cookies and skim milk they left out for him, are actually being held hostage by a group of terrorists who are after a whole lot of money in the basement of the mansion. The reindeer desert Santa and it is up to him to save this family.
Screenwriters Pat Casey and Josh Miller (Sonic the Hedgehog) really strike gold here with an intricate screenplay that borrows elements from several movies, other than Die Hard and give them just enough tweaking that we accept what turns out to be a thinly disguised homage to films like Home Alone, Knives Out, Miracle on 34th Street, and The Santa Clause.
There were a couple of minor plot points that were hard to legitimize. Primarily, number one son of the wealthy family, Jason, gives his daughter, Trudy, a walkie talkie and tells her it's a direct line to Santa Claus. Later on in the film, the corresponding walkie talkie is found on the body of a terrorist that Santa Claus takes out and maybe I missed how he ended up with the walkie talkie, but falling into Santa's hands, it allows Santa and Trudy to communicate throughout the film even though they're separated physically for most of the story like Bruce Willis and Reginald VelGleason in Die Hard.
What I really loved about this movie is the sometimes hard to swallow hook for the story that this guy is actually Santa Claus. We assume when we see him at the bar getting drunk that he is some sort of department store Santa, sick of his job because he's bewailing the ingratitude of today's children, something that was hard to argue with, but the story never wavers from the fact that this guy is really Santa Claus (though a new backstory provided for the character legitimizes his John McLane tendencies). Lost it when he got mad at the reindeer for deserting him in his time of danger and berating them again for conveniently showing up when the danger is over.
Director Tommy Wirkola mounts this story on a grand scale with bloody and unrelenting violence not expected in a Christmas movie. A Christmas tree star becomes quite the deadly weapon here, as does a fake icicle from a nativity scene. There are some great set pieces, my favorites being Santa's "nice" and "naughty" lists.
One of Hollywood's most underrated actors, David Harbour is Oscar-worthy as Santa, a role that requires gut busting machismo and undeniable sensitivity. Action movie performances rarely get Oscar nominations but Harbour is absolutely superb here, exploring every nook and cranny of this character and John Leguizamo scores as Scrooge, Leguizamo's first straight up villain since playing Tybalt in Baz Luhrman's Romeo and Juliet, Alex Hassell made the most of his role as Jason and have to give a shout out to the long absent from the screen Beverly D'Angelo as the bitchy family matriarch. What can I say, this movie was all kinds of fun and had me on the edge of my seat. Well done.