Bad Santa [MA]

Willie T. Stokes is a foul-mouthed, booze-soaked, kid-hating, sexaholic department store Santa who couldn’t care less if the kids have been naughty or nice. All he cares about is making it through to Christmas Eve so he can rob the place blind with the help of his bossy dwarf colleague. But this year the traditional Christmas robbery gets derailed by a suspicious security worker, a sexy bartender, and a socially awkward kid who’s convinced that Willie’s the real Santa. 

Christmas and holiday movies don’t always have to be family oriented and here to prove that is a politically incorrect, crude, and hugely adult holiday movie that still somehow manages to have a lovely story and message behind it. 

Willie T. Stokes is a foul-mouthed, booze-soaked, kid-hating, sexaholic department store Santa who couldn’t care less if the kids have been naughty or nice. All he cares about is making it through to Christmas Eve so he can rob the place blind with the help of his bossy dwarf colleague. But this year the traditional Christmas robbery gets derailed by a suspicious security worker, a sexy bartender, and a socially awkward kid who’s convinced that Willie’s the real Santa. 

The balance of the twisted characters, the messages of the holiday season, the orchestral festive music, and the striking contract of all these elements put together make Bad Santa a very interesting and entertaining film on a number of levels. 

Obviously it’s a dark and twisted comedy with the initial premise of the story being one of selfishness and illegality. The character of Willie, played beautifully by Billy Bob Thornton, is really the foulest and dingy and dirty and lowest person ever, which brings a great irony to the fact that he makes a living being a Santa. It’s then even funnier to see this horrible, foul-mouthed character slowly pull himself out of his rut by staying with this socially awkward kid who, inadvertently, sets Willie on a journey of self-betterment, bringing about the warm holiday message of the movie. 

As I mentioned before, the soundtrack is very seasonal and orchestral, which brings more irony to the film as it so greatly clashes against the leading character. The entire film runs on a very funny, yet very rude and crude, script and a whole lot of irony. It’s fantastic. 

Starring Billy Bob Thornton, Tony Cox, Brett Kelly, Lauren Graham, Lauren Tom, John Ritter, and Bernie Mac, Bad Santa is a very funny adult holiday film packed with sex, booze, profanities, action, crime, and comedy. It’s by no means a timeless holiday classic, but it does nicely break up the streak of family Christmas movies.