Movie & Video reviews

Travis Lavan

2/08/2007 - Bad Santa

Part of the way through Bad Santa, I started thinking about a scene from the film Pollock. There was a Thanksgiving dinner at the Pollock house where the title character has a bit too much to drink and begins viciously insulting his guests, taking out his inner pain on those around him. When this does not get the desired reaction, he begins knocking things over, most notably the dining table with all the food on it.

  It was a powerful and tragic scene depicting a man who was so thoroughly, hopelessly lost inside that he would do anything to avoid dealing with reality. There are a couple of scenes in Bad Santa that are nearly as uncomfortable but the irony is that Pollock was a drama while Bad Santa is a comedy.

  But it’s a comedy that feels like a somber character study as often as it feels like a hedonistic romp. There are plenty of laughs but they’re of the sort you get when you watch a YouTube video of someone falling thirty feet and landing on their head in horse manure.

  You laugh, but inside you feel like you really shouldn’t.

  Bad Santa tells the story of an alcoholic wreck named Willie (Billy Bob Thornton). Willie is a middle-aged drifter with no ambitions in life other than finding his next drink. To this end, he perpetrates rather simple cons on unsuspecting yuppies, and manages to maintain a fairly decent upper middle-class lifestyle for most of the year. But like most con men, the degree of intelligence necessary to pull off his capers is entirely offset by his unwillingness to do anything truly productive with his gifts.

  Willie just wants to party.

  Once a year, at Christmas, Willie teams up with his diminutive partner Marcus (Tony Cox) for their seasonal Mother of all Cons. The pair travels around the country to a different mall every year, getting themselves hired on as Santa and his Little Helper. They listen to Christmas wishes from scores of tots, all the while casing out the store for a heist.

  Year after year they get away with it, but Willie’s increasing dependence on alcohol makes it seem inevitable they’ll eventually be caught. It isn’t long before Willie is in danger of blowing their cover entirely as he embarrasses himself in public and throws extended tantrums, screaming at little children and their parents.

  I used to know someone very much like this. This isn’t to say he was a professional drifter, it is to say he was a violent drunk. It isn’t a pretty thing to watch someone destroy himself in ways that you usually only see in dark Hollywood comedies.

  Maybe that’s why I had such a hard time laughing at Willie’s tantrums. They were funny and depressing, but definitely more depressing than funny.

  To make matters worse for our intrepid crooks, their inept bumbling manages to attract the attention of the rather shady mall detective (Bernie Mac, who comes close to stealing the screen each time he appears) who has grown tired of his job and wants a piece of the action.

  And if that weren’t bad enough, a troubled young boy (Brett Kelly) latches onto Willie, thinking him to be the real Santa. Willie takes advantage of the child’s innocence and generosity, setting himself up in the boy’s house when Willie discovers the parents to be out of town.

  Willie eats, drinks, and parties his way through the next couple of weeks, subconsciously tormenting the poor kid when the boy seems determined to believe that the foul-smelling villain in his midst really is Santa.

  Eventually Willie decides to sink to the next level of depravity and brings home a barmaid named Sue (Lauren Graham) who has a “thing for Santas”. As they develop an on and off sexual relationship, Sue begins to see how Willie is taking advantage of the kid, and her pity for both of them begins to change Willie – a little.

  Willie now has to make a choice between his old life with Marcus – who becomes more impatient with Willie by the day – and his nagging desire to do something good and right for a change.

  Willie may have been torturing himself – as many alcoholics do – because he knew he was meant for better things but just couldn’t find a way to make them happen. Sue always seemed to be one to follow the better angels of her nature, and the kid – like most children – turns out to be much more than the sum of his chubby little parts.

  But in the end, Bad Santa left me wondering whether any of the characters involved really ever changed or learned anything. I had the feeling that next Christmas, the same story would play itself out over again, only a little worse.

  The thing that makes it okay to laugh at lowball comedy is when the protagonist ultimately finds redemption. We forgive the sleazy Delta House antics in Animal House because in the end, they all turn out to be pretty good guys. We look the other way at the degenerate Pete Venkman in Ghostbusters because we never feel he’s as selfish as he appears.

  But I never felt that way about Willie. The character’s raunchy, mean spirited journey never seems to lead him anywhere and as such I had a hard time feeling like the film itself was leading me anywhere.

  After it was all over, I felt a lot like I might have been sitting in the car outside Jackson Pollock’s house, covered with cranberry sauce, turkey leg still in hand. The whole experience was better than it should have been, not as bad as it could have been – but at least it was finally over.