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Violent Night, 2022
Santa (David Harbour) is deep in an alcoholic bender, stumbling and bumbling through a night of Christma deliveries. At the same time, a man named Jason (Alex Hassell), his estranged wife Linda (Alexis Louder), and their young daughter Trudy (Leah Brady) make their way to the home of Jason’s obscenely wealthy and profane mother, Gertrude (Beverly D’Angelo). Unfortunately, a crew of criminals, led by Scrooge (John Leguizamo), have chosen this night to take the family hostage and extort the family fortune from them.
Just about meeting the bar promised by the premise, this is a mostly fun flick that doesn’t rise above hitting the expected beats.
Look, you watch this movie to watch Santa drop some swears and decapitate some bad guys, right? And if it’s a profane, violent Santa you want, the film more than delivers on that front. Harbour’s Santa is not only drunk, he’s clearly just over it all. The only real relationship he seems to have is with his reindeer, and he’s not exactly enthusiastic about saving Trudy and her family.
The main praise that I can give this film is that some of the violence is pretty fun and imaginative. Between Santa being a semi-mythical creature and his weird range of powers, there are some unexpected moments, with special mention for the way that a baddie is dispatched in the final showdown.
Unfortunately, the rest of the characters don’t have a wacky premise, and they are all thinly written and barely likable. Trudy probably is the most likable, simply because of the innocence of her age and the dialogue she has throughout the film with Santa over a two-way radio. But there’s not much to say about the other characters or performances. I didn’t want them to be killed or tortured, I guess? I don’t happen to find the whole “grandmother being profane in front of children” trope very funny. These are rich people, and they are kind of terrible rich people. A lot of their problems stem from their own greed, and that’s even true of Jason and Linda, the ones we’re supposed to root for. The characters of Jason’s sister (Edi Patterson), her alpha himbo husband (Cam Gigandet), and their awful son (Alexander Elliot), are so deep into caricature territory that they barely even register.
I think that the film is going for a flippant tone, and I get it. But there’s so little heft or genuine quirk that it ends up feeling totally soulless. It’s almost hard to talk about the film, because it feels like someone said “Santa saving hostages on Christmas night---the jokes practically write themselves” . . . and then no one bothered writing anything beyond all the jokes that would occur to someone in the first 5 minutes of thinking about it.
I really like the concept of a mythical creature struggling with culture changing around them. There are also some fun nods to Santa’s savage past, though they feel a bit *ahem* borrowed from the book/show Hogfather.
I also thought that some of the violence crossed a line between over-the-top and mean-spirited, such as a sequence where Jason is tortured by the hostage-takers. Because the film lacks a sense of genuine joy, it just lands wrong for me.
This movie was roughly what I expected, but sadly it was nothing more than what I expected. The reindeer were the best part.
Violent Night, 2022
Santa (David Harbour) is deep in an alcoholic bender, stumbling and bumbling through a night of Christma deliveries. At the same time, a man named Jason (Alex Hassell), his estranged wife Linda (Alexis Louder), and their young daughter Trudy (Leah Brady) make their way to the home of Jason’s obscenely wealthy and profane mother, Gertrude (Beverly D’Angelo). Unfortunately, a crew of criminals, led by Scrooge (John Leguizamo), have chosen this night to take the family hostage and extort the family fortune from them.
Just about meeting the bar promised by the premise, this is a mostly fun flick that doesn’t rise above hitting the expected beats.
Look, you watch this movie to watch Santa drop some swears and decapitate some bad guys, right? And if it’s a profane, violent Santa you want, the film more than delivers on that front. Harbour’s Santa is not only drunk, he’s clearly just over it all. The only real relationship he seems to have is with his reindeer, and he’s not exactly enthusiastic about saving Trudy and her family.
The main praise that I can give this film is that some of the violence is pretty fun and imaginative. Between Santa being a semi-mythical creature and his weird range of powers, there are some unexpected moments, with special mention for the way that a baddie is dispatched in the final showdown.
Unfortunately, the rest of the characters don’t have a wacky premise, and they are all thinly written and barely likable. Trudy probably is the most likable, simply because of the innocence of her age and the dialogue she has throughout the film with Santa over a two-way radio. But there’s not much to say about the other characters or performances. I didn’t want them to be killed or tortured, I guess? I don’t happen to find the whole “grandmother being profane in front of children” trope very funny. These are rich people, and they are kind of terrible rich people. A lot of their problems stem from their own greed, and that’s even true of Jason and Linda, the ones we’re supposed to root for. The characters of Jason’s sister (Edi Patterson), her alpha himbo husband (Cam Gigandet), and their awful son (Alexander Elliot), are so deep into caricature territory that they barely even register.
I think that the film is going for a flippant tone, and I get it. But there’s so little heft or genuine quirk that it ends up feeling totally soulless. It’s almost hard to talk about the film, because it feels like someone said “Santa saving hostages on Christmas night---the jokes practically write themselves” . . . and then no one bothered writing anything beyond all the jokes that would occur to someone in the first 5 minutes of thinking about it.
I really like the concept of a mythical creature struggling with culture changing around them. There are also some fun nods to Santa’s savage past, though they feel a bit *ahem* borrowed from the book/show Hogfather.
I also thought that some of the violence crossed a line between over-the-top and mean-spirited, such as a sequence where Jason is tortured by the hostage-takers. Because the film lacks a sense of genuine joy, it just lands wrong for me.
This movie was roughly what I expected, but sadly it was nothing more than what I expected. The reindeer were the best part.