Bad Santa Movie Review 2003

This is not your grandparents' Christmas movie. Or your kids' for that matter. Thornton is Willie Stokes, an alcoholic, vulgarian, self-loathing departmant store Santa who uses the gig to rob the store safe on Christmas Eve. His partner is sidekick/elf Marcus, the brains of the duo, who berates Willie for letting his liquor-soaked ways interfere with the job. When they set up shop in Phoenix, things get complicated when a doughy outcast kid leeches onto Willie. Sentimentality is crushed beneath the boot of bitter misanthropy as the movie swerves from tasteless to merely outrageous and back. Luckily, the commitment of the cast to their unsavory roles makes most of the comedy works. Zwigoff and the script let in a little light at the end, but not so much that it betrays what came before. Ritter is excellent in his final role, as the meek store manager.

Distribution

Buena Vista Home Entertainment, 500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank, CA 91521-1120, Toll-free: 800-723-4763, URL: http://www.bvhe.com

Available on VHS, DVD
Running time 91 minutes.
Originally from United States.

Cast and Crew

Genres

Christmas, Not-So-True Identity, On the Rocks, Heists, Shops & Shopping, Horrible Holidays, Little People

Screenplay

Glenn Ficarra, John Requa

Cast

Billy Bob Thornton, Tony Cox, Lauren Graham, Brett Kelly, John Ritter, Bernie Mac, Lauren Tom, Cloris Leachman

Cinematography

Jamie Anderson

Director

Terry Zwigoff

Music

David Kitay

Other

Marc Weingarten, Lee Orloff, Rachel Levy, Robert Hoffman, Peter Borck, Wendy Chuck, Sharon Seymour

Producer

Bob Weinstein, John Cameron, Sarah Aubrey, Triptych Pictures, Dimension Films