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This is a heart-warming story about Santa, blended with John Wick, with a dash of Home Alone thrown in. Seriously, that pretty well sums up this film. Absurd. Violent, but not as over-the-top as you might think. Santa, portrayed by David Harbour, is at various times crude, drunk, potty-mouthed, sincere, determined, and doubtful. Oh, and violent (it’s even in the title, in case anyone was unsure).
Director Tommy Wirkola, perhaps best known for his zombie movies Dead Snow and Dead Snow 2, does his best to mix comedy, action, and heart into a cohesive story. While the cast does an admirable job staying true to their characters, none of them is particularly interesting. John Leguizamo is appropriately menacing but doesn’t give us anything we haven’t seen before. Beverly D'Angelo shows she still has her acting chops in portraying the family matriarch. And Leah Brady provides the heart of the movie as the cute and spunky little daughter. Most of the other cast members are just “there” occupying their stereotypes as best they can.
One thing that stood out to me was the contrast in music. There are some standard Christmas classics that sound fantastic, even on this rental’s DTS-X 7.1 soundtrack. On the other hand, both my wife and I didn’t care for the score at all. We both liked composer Dominic Lewis’ work on Bullet Train, but the style here was just cloyingly cutesy, and ended up undermining some of the more serious tones of the movie. That’s not surprising given the mix of feelings that the movie is trying to incorporate, but even just toning down the score’s sound levels would have helped the feel of the movie, instead of overpowering it.
There are a few laughs to be had, and I did find myself chuckling out loud a couple of times, but it would be hard to classify as a comedy. Given the amount of violence, it’s not really appropriate for children, even if there are parts of the story that play to that perspective. And there’s really not that much action to satisfy action movie fans. Also missing is any sense of world building around Santa, which is odd considering how much that could have added to the script.
That raises the question as to who this movie is for, and I can’t hazard a guess. One can’t help to compare it to the somewhat similarly themed Fatman. Of the two, I slightly prefer Mel Gibson’s effort. It had more surprises, and the story was slightly deeper, but neither were exactly remarkable.
If you’re looking for a somewhat amusing distraction over the holiday season and not opposed to seeing an irreverent Christmas movie featuring Santa beat up bad guys and get beaten up in return, you might just find this mildly entertaining. If you’re looking for anything beyond that, you’ll probably just end up bewildered and worn out by the end.
While it was nice to see a movie shot in real snow, instead of the typical Hollywood version, this was a rental at best.
Scott