BAD SANTA: REVIEW

Note: Originally ran in the Tufts Daily

Every once in awhile, the ancient and unbending laws of movie clichés demand that we find a man in a bar, drunk. He is the experienced Professional, but retired, out of the game, quit for good and living in a bottle of whiskey.

In walks the Chief. After some hard-boiled banter, the Chief tells the Pro, "We have a problem. We can't solve it. We need you to come back... one last time." After initially refusing, the drunk eventually agrees. Later, it turns out that his long lost daughter (or wife, or dog) is involved in the intricate plot. Multiple explosions ensue, necessitating slow-motion photography.

Something like that must have happened when the Coen brothers asked Terry Zwigoff, the director of the bizarre documentary Crumb and the hilariously dark Ghost World, to direct Bad Santa. Each of those movies, while critically acclaimed, made no money and Zwigoff was quoted as saying he would never work again. The Coen brothers, the film's executive producers, probably said, "We have a script. It might destroy sentimental Christmas movies forever. We need you to come back... one last time... with a vengeance."

Zwigoff does not so much poke fun at the hollowness of the holidays but rather he pours gasoline on them, throws a match, watches it burn and then pours on cement, just to make sure.

Billy Bob Thornton plays Willie, the world's worst department store Santa. Willie smokes, drinks, swears, vomits, destroys fake reindeer and drinks some more. He snarls at his partner Marcus (Tony Cox), a dwarf playing Santa's Elf, "You can't hold liquor worth s-t." Marcus replies, "I weigh 97 pounds, dickhead. What's your excuse?"

Willie and Marcus are employed by the very nervous Bob (the late John Ritter), who twitches at the mere mention of sex, and are lorded over by the head of security, Gin, a funny but underused Bernie Mac. What their bosses don't know is that Willie and Marcus are a team of safecrackers, who have been hitting up department stores for eight Christmases in a row.

Three kinks hamper their plans this year. One, Willie has gotten so drunk and sloppy, that the duo might actually get fired before they can pull off the job. Two, as improbable as it may seem, Willie has found a girlfriend (Lauren Graham) with a Santa fetish, who will sleep with him any hour of the day... as long as he wears the Santa hat the entire time. Three -- and this is where it gets really sick -- is a butterball of a kid played by Brett Kelly, who decides that Willie must be the real Santa, and must be his friend. His only friend.

The boy's mother has "gone to live with Jesus and the Walnut People," and his dad is in jail. His only caretaker is a senile grandmother (Cloris Leachman) who is obsessed with making sandwiches. "I thought you might get me a present, Santa," the Kid whines to Willie, "because you didn't get me one last year. Or the year before that." We finally find out the Kid's name late in the movie. It is Thurman Merman.

While in the beginning it all seems dark and a little wrong, it only gets worse. And funnier. Willie has a habit of seducing plus-size ladies in the dressing rooms, The Kid gets a mega-wedgie every day on the way to the mall, Marcus accuses his boss of racial/vertical discrimination, and Bernie Mac's character shakes down little kids in video game stores.

The story meanders until Willie is forced to live at the Kid's house and starts to get attached to him, in the same way that one gets attached to a giant scar on their face. After one mega-wedgie too many, he tries to teach the Kid self-defense, which degenerates into a crotch kicking contest of hilarious proportions. You have not lived until you have seen Billy Bob Thornton punch a dwarf in the nuts. Eventually, Willie steps up for the Kid, resulting in the inspirational scene where he announces: "I beat the s-t out of some kids today. It made me feel good, you know, like I did something right." "Therapy," replies Marcus, "you need therapy. Years and years of therapy."

The movie is, as some critics have called it, one note, completely based on the gimmick of a vulgar Santa Claus. It is also dark and dirty with wall-to-wall vulgarity and tastelessness. But it's not boring, it isn't swamped in syrupy sentiment and the movie did not (thank god) have a heart of gold. The actors take their jobs seriously, the director hits the right notes, and the writing is refreshingly unconcerned with being hip and ironically distant.

It is the real deal: a direct answer to Disney, It's a Wonderful Life, and every crappy Tim Allen holiday movie ever made. It is an up-yours to those who say, without a sense of humor or reality, that this is the most wonderful time of the year. And it is the funniest movie I've seen in a long, long time.

RATING: * * * * (out of 5 Stars)