Bad Santa

2003's BAD SANTA was pretty much what I expected and feared - a bitter comedy that relies heavily on too easy vulgarity leavened with too easy sentiment.   Writers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa and director Terry Zwigoff double down on the profanity to let us know the titular character is a real cretin, as if the endless booze and sex addiction weren't sufficient.  There's so much naughty language it becomes numbing and draws attention to itself.  I have no problem with cussing in movies but here it (and the entire picture) was so self conscious that I felt like a parent observing a juvenile delinquent, one craving attention.  That's a problem, invisible audience.  And it's not simply because I'm in my fifties.  I've watched other crass comedies lately and felt more like a willing co-conspirator, as it should be.   A successful venture of this sort has us rooting for the slobs, not hoping they'll get incarcerated because they're such insufferable douchebags. 

 

Billy Bob Thornton plays Willie Soke, a professional criminal who travels around the country with his dwarf sidekick Marcus Skidmore (Tony Cox) robbing shopping malls each Christmas.  Their "in" is to get gigs as Santa Claus and his elf assistant, suffering through long days in the mall hearing kids ask for Pokemon and a "Fraggle stick" for Christmas.  Somehow, they always make bank and never get apprehended, clearing safes and merchandise before getting out of dodge and heading for the next city.  

The duo end up in Phoenix, where Willie's alcoholism renders him barely able to walk or even sit upright for eight hours with a parade of brats on his lap.  He also regularly hooks up with women in dressing rooms.  This concerns not only Willie's boss Bob (John Ritter, to whom this film is dedicated), but also Marcus, who fears their careers in crime are about to fall to pieces.  

Willie will meet a sad and none too swift young kid named Thurman Merman (Brett Kelly) who is bullied by neighborhood skateboarders and whose father is in jail for embezzlement.  "Santa" sees this as meeting as an opportunity for a place to crash, as Thurman's only guardian is his out in space grandmother (Cloris Leachman).  Can Willie find his heart and soul with this kid? Gotta have your protagonist, no matter how big of an asshole (or maybe especially because he is one), have some form of redemption by film's end, right?

And BAD SANTA doesn't quite make it as either a crude and nasty comedy or heartwarming holiday fave.  Most of the jokes are fifth grade level, and the film has this weird habit of long silences after a joke, as if waiting for a laugh track.   Comedies that aren't funny are really embarrassing to sit through, though many apparently disagreed and made this film a hit (a sequel followed over a decade later; you can tell me about that one).  Billy Bob is fully invested and plays this as well as humanly possible, but the screenplay lets him and a talented and appealing cast (which also includes Lauren Graham and Bernie Mac) down.  After a good opening scene, nicely establishing Willie's character in voiceover, the film quickly nosedives into the sewer, and repeatedly beats us over the head to let us know how caustic it is about Christmas.  No finesse, critical for this sort of thing.  A lesson many 21st century comedies apparently missed.

I'm still in disbelief that Zwigoff, who directed the documentary CRUMB and the wry, sophisticated comedies GHOST WORLD and ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL was involved.  All three of those films are far funnier than this. 

I was not surprised to see that Joel and Ethan Coen were listed as executive producers.  Let me qualify that - not surprised to see their names on a comedy such as this from this time period.  The early to mid aughts were a dire time for the brothers, who churned out the duds INTOLERABLE CRUELTY and THE LADYKILLERS back to back around the same time as BAD SANTA.  Maybe they caught a bug or something.  Thankfully, they moved on and delivered more high level stuff later. 

To be fair, the occasional successful gag emerges from the manure and the film does make time for little touches (the Advent calendar, the sandbag candles) that indicate a better film was in the larval stage, at least.