Bad Santa

Terry Zwigoff (many may remember the excellent Crumb) has come back with a memorably irreverent black comedy following the exploits of a beer-swilling, abusive, womanizing Santa who we learn has a deal going with elf-playing dwarf Tony Cox to do the Santa bit for kids by day and rob department stores by night.

Its an elaborate ruse made all the more complicated by the arrival of a snotty fat kid who refuses to take offence despite Billy Bob’s best efforts to insult him. He’s indebted to the kid really since a gay hobo is attempting to hump Santa at the time in the car park. Meanwhile Santa is screwing half the female shop staff (‘By the time I’ve finished with you, you won’t be able to sit down for a week’), casing the joint with his goblin friend, abusing kids, cutting deals with a suspicious security guard and keeping a departmental manager at bay with threats of a disability rights case.

The part of Santa here is tailor-made for Billy Bob (think wise-cracking drunk and miserable) and Tony Cox gives great support as an equally cynical goblin. If you like your humour suitably black, you’ll love the dialogue here. It provides laughs from one minute to the next early on, which is a pretty good jokes-hitting ratio. It dips slightly towards the end but the ending holds up well.

Its perhaps a shade more of a boys' fun movie but much of the jaded cynicism regarding Christmas and all the materialism that goes with it will be shared by a mixed audience. It’s a bit of a surprise this is coming out now when nearer Christmas it might have provided more welcome relief for weary present-buying adults but given Father Christmas is about to start doing the rounds, its just about timely enough. If you can take the blackest humour and a healthy dose of cynicism, don’t miss this. Billy Bob’s Santa mixing it with the kid and his goblin partner is well worth it – arguably Zwigoff’s finest to date.

by Matt Arnoldi