Bad Santa (2003)

Genre

Comedy | Crime

Director

Terry Zwigoff

Country

USA

Cast

Billy Bob Thornton, Tony Cox, Lauren Graham, Brett Kelly, Lauren Tom, John Ritter, Bernie Mac, Octavia Spencer, Cloris Leachman, Alex Borstein, Billy Gardell, Bryan Callen, Tom McGowan, Ajay Naidu, Ethan Phillips, Matt Walsh, Max Van Ville, Ryan Pinkston, Curtis Taylor

Storyline

Santa (Billy Bob Thornton) and his Little Helper (Tony Cox) are two conman that rob department stores on Christmas Eves. It's only when Sana befriends a troubled kid (Brett Kelly) that they run into problems.

Opinion

Let's be honest, we all are sick and tired of those Christmas family films where everyone is happy, bad guys turn good and basically everyone is just enjoying Christmas. Well, at least I am. Call me the Grinch, but I don't like Christmas.

If you are a partner in crime of mine then "Bad Santa" is the perfect film for you. It is a dark comedy hilarious from start to finish, a very inappropriate Christmas movie and also manages to be slightly touching.

The film's plot isn't anything special. Actually, if anything, it isn't even that good and needs a lot of work, but somehow Terry Zwigoff makes it work bringing to the screen this very fun story about a dark side of Christmas, that not only assaults the Christmas spirit, but also tells the story of a man who has lost all faith in humanity and how that will be restored. And he does that without being over sentimental.

The film doesn't care much for the characters either. The main character, Santa, indeed is a one-dimensional, quite stereotypical cynical and suicidal character. And the others aren't any better. However, the cast makes those cardboard characters work, starting from Billy Bob Thornton who gives an extremely funny performance as the alcoholic Santa - he even received a Golden Globe nomination for the role. The film also benefits of Tony Cox, John Ritter and Bernie Mac.

At last but not least, the humour. It is tremendously vulgar, dark and sick, so it's definitely not for everyone, but if you like this wicked sense of humour, you'll really enjoy this dark comedy for grown ups.