Bad Santa - Movie Review

In Bad Santa’ Willie T. Sokes, an actor Billy Bob Thornton is a conman who spends the Christmas season, performing heists in the various departmental stores while being accompanied by his helper, Marcus. Playing a couple of roles of Santa and an elf, their plan works perfectly until a young and innocent boy, Thurman Merman appears in Willie’s life. When Thurman’s trust in Willie’s innocence, the audience finds Willie wrestling with the true meaning of Christmas evoking humour and relevance, albeit in a chaotic fashion. Thematically it is a combination of the stylistic technique of black Comedy and sentimentality. It is funny but also tries to add some serious dramatic undertones here and there and mostly succeeds in its aim; this is a comedy that is not afraid to have heart. Much contrast with Tony’s Marcus who, despite of wisecracking and taking no nonsense from anyone, is a rather lovable character. There is something endearing foraudiences this time around in Brett Kelly who portrayed the character of Thurman where he portrays innocence that contrasts with Willie ‘s pessimism. Special appearances of Lauren Graham and Bernie Mac help to enrich the movie’s plot and introduce dynamics into the film.

Skillfully, Terry Zwigoff manages to bring to screens a comedy-drama mix successfully. His directions are always moderate between the obscene and romantic where none of the extremes can overpower the other. Zwigoff makes a holiday movie that is out of the ordinary and liberating at the same time.

Peculiar combination of traditional Christmas songs played with all the verses heard in the film is the ironic finishing touch. The music also contributes to the cheerful mood of the film while stressing the black humor that belongs to this story.

The look of the film by director Jamie Anderson conveys the monotonous but utterly mad existence of the American shopping mall amid Christmas trees setting the tone for this distasteful Christmas story. It helps in enhancing the reality and absurdity of the film’s setting with respect to the life of Willie.

It also contrasts the glee and festivity of the malls where the major part of the movie is set against the grim reality of Willie’s life as the movie’s theme relies on the stark contrast of festivity and madness.

It is not overused, but the special effects add humoristic color to The exchanges are so deftly crafted that they contain the seeds of both insult and truth.

Overall, ‘Bad Santa’ works in its lack of apology approach but might turn off the viewers with its preference for f-bombs. Yet in terms of the Christmas theme, it is very unconventional and thus will be perfect for those people who enjoy the black humor movies and TV-shows. It also provides endless laughter and a surprisingly deep portion of the heart, or maybe it simply sparkles as the end-of-year film with an adult, and pretty dark humor. What I took away from this film was quite a decent amount of substance to think about beyond simply ‘gross out’ comedy but something which tells a simple story about the importance of people in our lives and the power of change.