There’s always something to be said for a movie that
delivers exactly what it promises.
Violent Night begins with the real Santa Claus in a bar, tired, worn out, drunk and depressed at the general lack of Christmas spirit in the world. He is feeling unappreciated and thinking about a way out because not even his own Christmas magic (that he doesn’t really understand) is helping him cope. Meanwhile, we meet Jason Lightstone, being picked up by his wife, Linda, and daughter, Trudy, to head to his wealthy mother’s for Christmas. We gather fairly quickly from context that they have recently split, and Trudy is not handling the separation well. Once they arrive at the house, we also gather from context that mother Lightstone, Gertrude, is very wealthy, and between Jason and his sister Alva, they gather every holiday to attempt to get some of her money. Jason seems to be putting a plan in place to end this nonsense and hopefully win back Linda.
As the family are proving how terrible they are, Santa is going house to house and enters the Lightstone residence just as it is infiltrated by criminals looking to steal the three million dollars in the Lightstone safe. Trudy manages to contact Santa via walkie talkie, and her faith in him and Christmas restores a bit of his as he takes steps to save her – by whatever means necessary.
The movie is fast paced and violent as hell. Directed by Tommy Wirkola, who did Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters (a movie I really enjoyed for almost no reason), it is tongue-in-cheek and definitely funny while somehow also managing to have some genuine Christmas touching moments and magic. The Lightstones are all terrible people, but the criminals are even worse and the things that are done to them, both by Trudy and Santa are hilariously over the top.
The cast is fine in their roles, but really, this movie centers around David Harbour and thank goodness it does. I am not sure who else could have pulled off a depressed and bewildered Santa who is also a former Viking warlord. Harbour does it with such glee that you cannot wait for him to eliminate the next bad guy.
Alex Hassell as Jason, Alexis Louder as Linda, and Leah Brady as Trudy are the few LIghtstones you root for, but even they have some questionable moments. Edi Patterson as Alva, Cam Gigandet as her husband, action movie star Morgan Steel, and Alexander Elliot as their influencer son, Bert are the absolute worst in truly hilarious ways.
John Leguizamo leads the crew of baddies which includes Brendan Fletcher as Krampus, Andre Eriksen as Gingerbread, Mitra Suri as Candy Cane, and Stephanie Sy as Sugarplum. I love all their code names.
The surprise for me was Beverly D’Angelo as the truly
hateful Gertrude Lightstone. What a treat to see her playing something
completely opposite of what she is generally known for this time of year.
Overall, the movie is fun and silly and very gory. I enjoyed the way it has some callbacks to classic Christmas-adjacent flicks like Die Hard and Home Alone. It especially points out that perhaps Home Alone is not great for kids to watch as all those booby traps could kill people – which of course, works perfectly here. I strongly recommend watching this in as full a theater as possible – the audience reacting to each of the various over-the-top kills together made it even more entertaining!
7 out of 10
This is making my Top Ten favorite Films this year. Easy Choice.
ReplyDelete