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Bad Santa Movie Review

Bad Santa is a 2003 Christmas comedy film directed by Terry Zwigoff and starring Billy Bob Thornton. It is one of the funniest movies of this decade.

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“You’re an emotional fucking cripple.

Your soul is dog shit.

Every single fucking thing about you is ugly“

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Rather than spreading good cheer, Willie, a swindler dressed up as Santa, and his elf partner Marcus try to rob a mall. Their motive fails when the thief befriends an eight-year-old boy. This is one of the most surprising comedies that I’ve seen in recent memory. I’d known about it and that it would be good, but I did not know expect that it would be this great.

The main reason why this movie works as well as it does is its honest, direct and fresh approach to storytelling. It never goes in the direction that you would expect. There is no happy ending here, the kid doesn’t change the man nor does he become a great person all of a sudden. No, none of those unrealistic cliché elements are present here.

Instead, we get a darker ending that is still hopeful in tone, which was simply a perfect way to conclude this flick. The movie flies by how fun it is that I wished for a longer runtime, but it’s very well paced and brisk, but suitably slower and more meaningful when it needs to be.

Bad Santa features a cast of immensely colorful characters and personalities and the vast majority of them are true criminals, which was hilarious to witness in the context of this holiday. It pretty much acts as a deconstruction of the Christmas movie genre, which in and of itself was brilliant and unique.

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The protagonist is absolutely phenomenal. What Billy Bob Thornton did here needs to be appreciated more as this was an iconic comedy performance that will stand the test of time for sure. In particular, he excelled at comedic timing, line delivery and stupendous facial expressions that made me laugh countless of times. He is incredibly believable as this foul-mouthed drunk who is lost in life and will grab the small bits of joy that life throws at him with no second thought.

I loved his relationship with the kid. This child is obnoxiously annoying, but still endearing in his own way. The scenes where he stood up for the kid and thought him to fight were powerful, but also the moments where he insulted him were hilarious. That dichotomy was superbly realized.

The movie never turned into emotionally manipulative territory, but was instead genuinely touching in a couple of scenes with the kid. That lack of obvious emotional manipulation and a presence of true emotion I strongly admired. Most movies fail at that, but this is not your regular comedy, not by a long shot.

Others are terrific as well. I expected a bit more character development for the little person character, but his dynamic with Willie was so much fun and him acting as a psychiatrist to the protagonist was hilarious. The wife was even funnier as this campy thief who would stop at nothing to rob a place blind. The girlfriend having a Santa kink was also hilarious.

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Bad Santa is pretty much fun and funny throughout with only some middle elements being inferior, but most of it made me engaged and it made me laugh. The script is outstanding, the use of the classic Christmas songs juxtaposed with the nastiness of the humor was terrific, and the directing is also great.