The conventional thought is that if you end up on Santa’s Naughty List, you’ll receive a lump of coal for Christmas. Disappointing? Sure. But nothing that’s going to ruin your life. Unfortunately the same can’t be said if you find yourself on the Naughty List of David Harbour’s Santa in Violent Night. As the movie’s title suggests, you could receive something a little more sinister. Say, a sledgehammer to the face, for one example.
Harbour’s Santa has grown disillusioned with the job (to be fair, several centuries at any job could do that to anybody). He laments the lack of true Christmas spirit; kids these days are too materialistic. He spends Christmas Eve drinking “in between shifts,” as he puts it. Like so many others, he’s just trying to get through a night of work. But his night takes a drastic turn when he arrives at the Lightstone house. Though, house is an understatement. It’s a mansion, estate, compound.
As he’s delivering presents, he discovers there is a home invasion and robbery in progress. Mr. Scrooge (John Leguizamo) and his team of cronies are there to steal $300 million in cash that Gertrude Lightstone (Beverly D’Angelo) has stored in her safe. Santa’s initial reaction is to get out of there as quickly as possible. But then his reindeer get scared off by gunfire, leaving Santa on his own. And then he sees young Trudy Lightstone (Leah Brady), daughter of Jason (Alex Hassell) and Linda (Alexis Louder), who just so happens to be on the Nice List. He decides to stay and help the family, if only because of Trudy.
Director Tommy Wirkola has a blast crafting a mash-up of Die Hard (Trudy and Santa even communicate by walkie talkie), Home Alone, even Elf. When it all comes together, Violent Night is a violent, bloody good time. Part of that is simply seeing a bad-ass, hard drinking Santa. It’s not a version you often see. The kills and fights are gnarly and creative, using the full force of the Yuletide season. Using ornaments as weapons, sucking down a candy cane into a shiv, the creative possibilities are endless.
Even the score is in on the joke, with several instrumental versions of Christmas classics playing over some of the more brutal scenes. It makes for some very fun and effective juxtaposition. The script is loaded with Christmas puns, made funnier with the seriousness and depravity with which they’re delivered. And it’s in these moments where Violent Night really hums along.
But the tone tries to strike a weird balance, toeing a fine line between full-on Christmas action comedy and serious home invasion movie interpolated with family drama. Those family moments are by far the weakest parts of the movie. Gertrude Lightstone has seemingly ruled her family with an iron fist, just like in her business. It’s made her two kids, Jason and Alva (Edi Patterson) desparate for her attention and approval, leaving them in constant competition. Violent Night would have been better off leaving the family drama on the cutting room floor. It would have given the movie a better and more cohesive flow, while also cutting out a chunk of the runtime to make it a tighter story.
No one is coming to a movie called Violent Night, featuring Santa brutal murdering bad guys, for the family stuff. They’re coming to see Santa brutally murder scummy bad guys. We also could have used a little more insight into Santa’s backstory. Now, I’m not saying we needed any at all. Santa has been around for centuries, millennia even. It’s easily plausible that he’s picked up a variety of skills along the way. But Violent Night insists on giving just a taste of that background. But it amounts to barely more than a single bite of pizza. We don’t need a whole pizza, but a full slice would be nice if you’re going to go there at all.
But again, it’s the action and the accompanying comedy that keep the story above water, combined with David Harbour and John Leguizamo’s fully committed performances. They revel in the goofiness of their roles, and how absurd it all is. It’s a little disappointing to look at what these two were able to do and think about what could have been if the whole movie had kept that same vibe. But enough of the focus is on this part and their characters that it mostly works. And just like how nobody is coming to this movie for the family drama, nobody is seeing this hoping for an elite movie. They’re seeing it hoping for an elite movie experience. And on that grading scale, Violent Night more than lives up to expectations.
Score: 75/100
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