[Rating: Rock Fist WAY down]
David Harbour as a jaded Santa Claus on the brink of retiring from the game gets thrown into a Die Hard slash Home Alone-type situation to save a family from murderous bandits on Christmas Eve?
Yes, please.
At least, that was my initial thoughts when I saw the trailer for this holiday disaster, bluntly titled Violent Night. Unfortunately, it spends so much time snickering and patting itself on the back about how clever the screenwriters seem to think their own concept is that it fails to capture and deliver on the promise of vile and hilarious eat-the-rich satire.
David Harbour (Stranger Things) is Santa Claus. He’s a drunk and apparently a former warrior viking or something weird and crazy. Every now and then we get flashbacks to what is either his early life, or an audition for The Northman, it’s never really made clear. It just shows this Saint Nick has a violent past and some blood lust.
So, on this Christmas Eve, a family of rich a-holes, led by Beverly D’Angelo (Christmas Vacation). She’s rich and powerful for….reasons. It’s pretty ambiguous, whatever it is. When their dysfunctional holiday gathering is crashed by a gang of career criminals, led by John Leguizamo, a wanna be Hans Gruber who calls himself Scrooge, the fate of the family is left up to the drunk and bumbling Santa, who just happens to pass out on a massage chair after over indulging in holiday snacks.
He’s aided by little Trudy Lightstone (Leah Brady), a precocious believer in Santa, who is guilt gifted a walkie talkie by her father, who according to the script is the good guy of the Lightstone family. She acts as Santa’s guy in the chair, voice of reason, Christmas spirit cheerleader. Although it’s never made clear now exactly Santa gets the other walkie. But like most plot elements in this dreadful dud, it doesn’t matter. Things just kinda happen in order to make things happen.
Because the movie wants to constantly remind you that it was inspired by holiday classics such as Home Alone and Die Hard, it’s impossible not to compare them. The biggest difference between those adorable and timeless movies, besides better direction, writing, story, etc. is those movies had characters that were likable, relatable and fun to root for. The Lightstone family sucks. All they do is bicker and fight. The crooks are even worse. Poor Leguizamo looks even more bored being in the movie than I was watching it.
Directed by Tommy Wirkola (Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters) and written by Pat Casey and Josh Miller, Violent Night is pretty much a clunky mess for the duration of what you’d think was a quick hour and forty minutes, but feels much longer mostly because there’s not as much happening as the story would have you believe.
Of course, Violent Night earns its name in the final act, when things kinda pick up and get a little more entertaining but that’s just because Santa finally unleashed the viking within and goes on a rampage of killing goons in the craziest, bloodies and most insanely violent ways possible. Harbour is having fun and in a better movie might rank as a really kick ass jolly old Saint Nick, but here the cartoon violence is no replacement for what every good holiday movie needs: heart.
Violent Night is crude, dumb, overly violent and just flat out boring as hell. Not even the guy from Stranger Things, the mom from Christmas Vacation and John Leguizamo can save this Christmas movie from being a hard pass. It’s literally the white elephant gift of Christmas movies…..ugh. What else ya got??
Lover of movies and tacos. Ad man. Author. Member of the Kansas City Film Critics Circle and the Broadcast Film Critics Association. Founder of the Terror on the Plains Horror Festival. Creator and voice of the Reel Hooligans podcast.
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