I enjoyed Bad Santa but mostly with a furrowed brow and my head shaking. This
movie is disturbing, yet it's funny. Bad Santa is funny in the same way that
South Park is funny--because the characters say and do inappropriate things.
The title is somewhat telling. Bad Santa sounds like a gentle chastisement for a
loved pet, where the word might convey displeasure, but the underlying meaning is
loving. It's the same here. Billy Bob Thornton is a bad Santa, but it's his
badness that makes him if not loveable, then at least memorable.
The story is ho-hum. Billy Bob is a safecracker and a drunk. He and his
accomplice, an individual with dwarfism, work as Santa and elf for a different
department store every year. While spreading "Christmas cheer" they scope out
the store's safe and rob it. In fact, I saw basically the same movie on cable on
Sunday night. Called Stealing Christmas and starring Tony Danza, the plot was the
same just with extra sugar and without the R rated language and sex.
And while Stealing Christmas is saccharine Bad Santa makes itself outstanding by
obnoxious dialogue, inappropriate language, and risqué scenarios. Bad Santa
appeals because it is funny. The dialogue--oh so objectionable and please don't
let your kids go--contains the kinds of comments you'd like to say to people who
really bother you--reporters, for example, who thrust microphones in the faces of
those who have just undergone some extreme experience and ask them "how do you
feel." Bad Santa would speak his mind and how gratifying is that?
Billy Bob is wonderful as the Bad Santa. He's ably supported by Tony Cox as the
Marcus, Santa's Elf and mastermind of the whole operation. John Ritter, in his
last movie role, is Santa's uptight employer and Bernie Mac is the store
detective who wants a piece of the action.
There's more to Bad Santa than de-sweetening a usually sentimental season.
There's also a rather poignant commentary on the loneliness of the
disenfranchised in a season where giving and receiving is an obsession. When I
stopped laughing, I found that Bad Santa had depth. I even found the ending
refreshing. Its ambiguity seemed to hold true to the integrity of the
characters.
I will caution you again, Bad Santa is R rated for good reason. Every other word
is an expletive, and although the plot concerns Santa and a kid, this is no happy
sappy Christmas movie. And, while cinematic Christmas good cheer might make us
feel good for the moment, Bad Santa's razor wit sarcasm peels back the layers of
that fake cheer to examine the hearts of two loners who find that a glimmer of
hope, even though unlikely to blossom into anything at all, just might be enough.
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