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Violent Night Movie Review

Violent Night is a 2022 action comedy film directed by Tommy Wirkola and starring David Harbour. It is a hugely disappointing movie.

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“Santa’s gonna eat through these guys like a plate of cookies!“

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An elite team of mercenaries breaks into a family compound on Christmas Eve, taking everyone hostage inside. However, they aren’t prepared for a surprise combatant: Santa Claus is on the grounds, and he’s about to show why this Nick is no saint. I’d had a lot of expectations for this movie, but it unfortunately squandered most of its potential, delivering only in smaller moments and not all the way.

The main issue of this movie is its split personality. It is basically in its violence an edgier version of ‘Home Alone’, but in trying to be both an endearing kids movie and a bloody action flick, it fails at both. It has no audience in mind as adults would find it too childish while in its graphic violence it is certainly not meant to be watched by children.

That violence is in fact so extreme that most horror movies would not be a match for this film. Bodies get decapitated and dismembered as the movie finds various colorful ways to gruesomely kill its villains. These scenes are accompanied by some very funny imagery and physical humor and they are entertaining, but sometimes they were just a bit too over-the-top and gross for me.

David Harbour is wonderful in the main role and he is undoubtedly Violent Night’s biggest asset. Without him, this movie would be entirely disposable. He is perfectly cast as his ‘Stranger Things’ role already showed us that he is best used in these action comedic roles. He is believable as both an action hero and a sweet Santa, thus he elevated this movie throughout.

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It’s a shame, then, that most of the film underused him. He is a victim at first, which was frustrating. He unleashed his powers and his fury only in the second half. The magical fantastic elements were actually very intriguing, but it’s a problem when you introduce this cool mythology and you sideline it in favor of annoying and underdeveloped supporting characters and villains that are so cartoonish that they speak in a ridiculous one-liner fashion. Again, I liked some of the action here, but in those crime elements the film lost its comedy, which was highly frustrating for me.