TTPOC 2008: #03: Movie Review: Bad Santa (2003)

Since the mid-90s, Hollywood has thrown many Holiday-themed pictures our way, thinking we mindless idiots would lap them up the way we had with the genuine modern classics. More often than not they failed to deliver any of the charm or warmth that made a Christmas movie a wonderful experience. Year after year, we were tortured out of our minds as the same stories cycled through the Cineplex.

In 2003, Terry Zwigoff made a film called Bad Santa and gave us one of the funniest, raunchiest, nastiest, beautifully heartfelt 90 minutes of Christmastime bliss that we as movie fans were craving.

Billy Bob Thornton stars as Willie, a foul-mouthed, sex-crazed alcoholic, who works seasonally as Santa Claus (and the Easter Bunny --Sequel Bait?--) and with his little sidekick, the mastermind behind it all, robs the shopping malls they work for. Drawn back into the game because he pissed away the money from the previous score, Willie wants nothing more than a bottle of whiskey, a quickie, his money, and to be left the hell alone.

Through an encounter of innocence with a shy chubby boy simply called The Kid, played wonderfully by Brett Kelly, and various sexual encounters with a Santa fetishist, played by the adorable Lauren Graham, Willie's Scrooge-like exterior begins to melt and makes him begin to see the scumbag that he is.

While the vulgarity and the situations here are hilarious and down-right crude, the great thing about Bad Santa is the fact that it has, in its deepest, deepest core, a fast-beating heart that finds a way to make the Season bright. Even Willie's salvation isn't so much touching as it is hilarious and keeping with the tone of the movie (he beats the hell out of a kid).

Thornton, Kelley, and Graham shine in this gem, but the main attraction is the wise-cracking, diminutive crook/elf played by Tony Cox, whose mouth is a mile of sewage a second and some of the exchanges with Thornton's character are floor-rolling fare.

For a good time, when the lights are low and the kiddies are off to their rooms to pretend they are sleeping, do yourself a favor and queue up Bad Santa. You won't regret it.

Bernie Mac and John Ritter co-star.

For Its Genre/Era/X: Awesome.

Overall: Awesome.

One more...she's just too cute.