Bad Santa (2003)
Starring Billy Bob Thornton and Tony Cox. Directed by Terry Zwigoff.
Kilgore rates it: 7 (out of 10)

The bad news is that Bad Santa is built on the hackneyed comedy formula of dressing someone up in a fake beard and a red hat and then having him curse or fart or give someone the finger. Automatic laffs through juxtaposition of supposed innocence versus revealed vulgarity!

The good news is that nobody plays a bad Santa like Billy Bob Thornton. His character Willie takes jobs as a department store Santa with his midget partner Marcus, (Tony Cox), in order to gain access to the stores' security systems and rob their safes. Unfortunately for him, Willie actually has to play Santa for a while, and he plumbs new depths of Kris Kringle obscenity by showing up to work drunk, stealing cars, and sodomizing a plus-size woman in a department store dressing room. The scenes of Willie behaving badly in his filthy Santa outfit are very funny and provide most of the comedy in this movie. The rest comes from smaller parts played by John Ritter and Bernie Mac, who can exude bad attitude even while eating an orange.

The plot veers close to a cliched Hollywood redemption at the end, but mostly manages to steer clear. I would like to have given this movie a higher rating, but it gives none of the immortal moments that make great comedy movies like Office Space or Tommy Boy. Still a worthy effort.

+posted by Lawrence @ 12/22/2003 11:55:00 PM