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Bad Santa

Bad Santa

List Price: $29.99
Your Price: $26.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Bad Santa=Terrible Movie
Review: I can't believe that John Ritter, Bernie Mac, and that dwarf Tony whatshisname were in this movie and it is still so devoid of humor. Bernie spends 50% of his screen time doing nothing but eating oranges. The line that got the most laughs was a straight rip-off of Howard Stern. Bennifer created a pretty laughable film with his Reindeer Games, and this is yet another holiday stinker. It's really too bad that the poster and title both have santa in them because this means way too many children are going to see this. It is NOT a movie for kids unless you are looking for teachable moments on alcoholism, sodomy, and the 99,000 different usages of the "f" word. I feel very sorry that this was John's last movie. Poor guy.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The feel-bad hit of the winter
Review: For those of us who can't quite get into the Christmas spirit, "Bad Santa" is a massive preemptive strike against all of the insufferable sentimentality we're going to be subjected to a few months from now. This movie is every bit as entertaining and funny as "School Of Rock," but where "School Of Rock" succeeded through the overwhelming weight of its good intentions, "Bad Santa" (its moderately heartwarming ending notwithstanding) is all about bad intentions. This movie, especially in its powerhouse first half, displays such a commitment to mean-spiritedness that you can't help but love it.

Billy Bob Thornton's safe-cracking department-store Santa Willie is the epitome of ugliness, all the more so because he commits much of his mayhem in his work outfit. Early on we see him getting drunk and throwing up in an alley, and from there he remains in the gutter for much of the movie. He chain smokes, he wets himself in his chair, he fornicates in a dressing room, and above all, he swears. I don't find profanity inherently funny, but Thornton's acid tongue manages to turn four-letter words into weapons of unimaginable destructive power. More than anything I've seen since the "South Park" movie, "Bad Santa" manages to elevate nasty language into an art form.
Even in its moments of humanity, the movie doesn't aim too high. Willie does have a love interest, but not quite in the conventional sense: intead, it's a young bar waitress with a Santa fetish who demands that Willie wear his stocking cap during coupling. Willie also finds some meaning in his life by striking up an offbeat friendship with a fat, bullied kid named Thurman, a bond that manifests itself in one unforgettable scene when Willie beats the living hell out of the teen skateboarder who gave Thurman a black eye.

Even though it's Thornton's show, "Bad Santa" also benefits from a top-notch supporting cast. In his last film role, the late John Ritter is the picture of ineffectualism as the mall manager; Bernie Mac is admirably slimy as the self-interested security chief; and the three-foot-tall Tony Cox belies his small size with a scene-stealing performance as Willie's "elf" and partner in crime.

"Bad Santa" doesn't have an enormous level of plot development, but then it doesn't really need much. What's really important is the way the movie's cynicism slices and dices the sugary "cheer" (which is often cynical itself) that typically accompanies the holiday season. Christmas isn't all about irritating songs and people rioting in department stores over cheap presents, and we all owe a debt to "Bad Santa" for dumping a little snow on the parade.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Boo! Hiss! Puke!!!
Review: This film makes American Pie look like Citizen Kane!! How could anyone give this anything higher than one star!! Apparently, there are more people than I could have imagined living in mom's basement!! How could anyone find a film about a grown man using fairly constant hardcore profanity in front of children entertaining? Personally, it was "creeping" me out in a "bad touch" kind of way (if you get my meaning)! Forget all the controversy regarding the degrading of Santa; this was obviously just a bad case of celluloid abuse, period, end of story!! When did we as a society finally give up and decide that neurotically dysfunctional abusive people were now to be considered a form of entertainment?? I hate to sound preachy but I see film as an art form that should be entertaining, artistically edifying and relevant! This is none of those! Don't get me puritanically wrong, I thought a film like "The Big Lebowski" was hilarious at times! Sure, it wasn't a masterpiece but it did tickle our mental bone and pushed our surreal buttons once and a while!! Bad Santa, one the other hand, caters to the basest areas within human nature and it is neither funny nor entertaining!! Actually, it is kinda sad!!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: This ain't no "Miracle on 34th Street"!
Review: "Bad Santa" is perverse, subversive and amoral. It is also outrageously funny. A true 'adult movie', it's not anything most parents would want their kids to see, but, then, I doubt it's something the people who made it would want THEIR kids to see either. After all, there IS life after the kids go to bed.

The movie is like "Miracle on 34th Street" on booze. In that classic holiday tale, a drunken Santa Claus is replaced by the REAL Santa and everything turns out fine for everyone. But what if the drunk wasn't replaced? What if he had a partner, an adorable dwarf dressed up as an elf, and they had an ulterior motive, as in robbing the mall by which they were employed? What if the kid who doesn't believe in Santa but wants to isn't the sweet Natalie Wood of "Miracle" but a kid so lonely and so demented he makes your hair stand on end?

Billy Bob Thornton plays Willie, the drunken, totally unredeemable Santa, brilliantly. It is a role many actors of his stature - not to mention many beneath his stature - would have been terrified to take on. He is truly one of the great character actors of his generation. He seems almost fearless. Tony Cox is remarkably funny as Marcus, the elf.

In a world full of movies which play to audience expectations, it is refreshing to see one that seems to care less whether people like it or not. "Bad Santa" remains true to itself and, in doing so, takes no prisoners. It is a remarkable movie and, to me, remarkably funny one, too.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: FEARLESSLY BAWDY BUT FUNNY
Review: Bad Santa has many crass gags, it almost drags you into a dark alley of tasteless humour and thrashes you up. Imagine Billy Bob Thorton in a comic lead role, tough to visualize. But the man is bloody hilarious! Some parts are better scripted than others, but for a film that's so determined NOT to have a heart, it does surprise you with one. A wonderfully perverse treat that goes by in a flash, so it can't be all that bad any way. Recommended!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A Funny Contrast to The Christmas Story
Review: It's true, most reviews I have seen, they have described "Bad Santa" as a Christmas movie for cynics. Billy Bob Thornton takes a huge risk with the leading role, as a hard drinking, swearing, unkempt department store Santa with a fetish for plus-size women.
Let me be completely frank...although I admit most kids nowadays have been seasoned with the F-word, I think the language in the movie alone would dissuade most parents from screening it for young children. This is for adults, folks. Anyway, Bad Santa teams up with his partner, Marcus (who masquerades as a black elf) to rob department stores every Christmas. They have an interesting modus operandi..get jobs at the mall at Christmas time as Santa and elf, break in after hours, and abscond with the store's safe contents and assorted loot. Next season, different city, different mall, and so on. Thornton's Santa, real name Willie, is portrayed with no redemptive qualities. He is talked every year into the robbery scheme by his diminutive partner Marcus. Let's face it..Willie is only good at two things..drinking and safe cracking. The fact that Willie can barely tolerate people and hates children creates a great deal of comedy in itself. His exchanges with the children who sit on his lap and the department store manager (well played by the late John Ritter)are both shocking and funny in their audacity.
Anyway, through a bizarre set of circumstances involving a young boy (it was a stroke of genius for the director to cast the child as a fat, socially inept stalker) and a kinky bargirl who has a fetish for Santas, Willie goes through a slight reformation..sort of. Don't get me wrong..there are no "It's a Wonderful Life" brush strokes of cinema in here. "Bad Santa" knows why some people spend Christmas in bars..and gets more than a few twisted laughs from its observations.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: FOR THOSE WHO LOVE DARK COMEDY
Review: If you love comedy, especially dark comedy then this is the movie for you. When I first saw the commerical on TV I knew I had to see this movie and I was right- it was excellent. Movies arent meant to be the same and I have never seen a Santa like this before!!!! It's a collectible item if you ask me and a must have. People with a sense of humor shouldn't miss it.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Another Side of Christmas
Review: Bad Santa is not your typical Christmas movie fare. Based on an idea by the Coen brothers, Bad Santa follows the exploits of a continually drunk and ill-tempered safe cracker, Willy (Billy Bob Thornton) who poses as a department store Santa with his partner Marcus (Tony Cox) as an elf. Willy has almost no redeeming qualities. He curses at the kids, drinks until he wets his pants and is a sex maniac. While on their latest caper in Phoenix, Willy meets a weird kid Thurman (Brett Kelly) whose mother is dead and his father is in jail although Thurman thinks he's on a mountain climbing expedition. Thurman is watched by his clueless grandmother (Cloris Leachman) and this lack of supervision gives Willy the perfect place to hide out. After at first being disgusted by the kid, Willy grows to have some caring feelings towards him, which leads to the touching but wry ending. Mr. Thornton is superb in his role and he does the almost impossible task of making you care about a guy who is absolutely unlikable. Mr. Cox is a riot as Willy's partner and he has some of the best and dirtiest lines in the film. Lauren Graham appears as Sue a bartender with a Santa fetish who provides the film's most memorable, but unrepeatable line. Bernie Mac appears in an under utilized role as the department store's security chief and John Ritter has a brief appearance in his last film as the store's manager. His one scene with Mr. Thornton & Mr. Cox is hysterical. Young Brett Kelly is the heart of the film. His portrayal of the dimwitted Thurman is touching and sweet. It provides the yin to Mr. Thornton's raunchy yang.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Bad Santa is GOOOOOOD!!!!
Review: Billy Bob Thornton is so low in his portrayal of the anti-Santa, he is mouth-droppingly disgusting and foul - yet somehow endearing. Such a wretched wreck he can't even control his bodily functions - but that doesn't stop him from showing up for work as a department-store Santa. His partner is a midget dressed as an elf: apparently an irresistible combination for mall managers, who obviously don't delve too deeply into his background. Bernie Mac and John Ritter are wonderful supporting characters.

I think at some point all adults get sick of the endless good cheer of the "holiday." This movie is for those times. The story turns when Thornton meets a fat kid who is determined that Thornton is The Real Thing. The boy takes Santa home to live with him and his senile grandmother. The ending of the story is wonderful and well-executed. Who the real villian(s) turns out to be is a surprise.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Never even liked it
Review: It was a bad movie for me. I thought this was a good movie which I expect but it didn't do it for me due to the bad language and stuff. I wanted to rate this higher, but I said after seeing it after two shots, I decided to give it no to that or two thumbs down for example, I'm not really afraid of the bad language that's on there. But it shoulda show a new effort behind. For those that did want to see check this out for yourself. For those didn't love it or bought it, appreciate it. 'Cuz I never even wanted to see that movie it was too raw and a lil too much. I wouldn't recommend it to anybody. But prefer other movies like BOOGIE NIGHTS (which I seen twice), AUTO FOCUS, UNFAITHFUL, BANK ROBBER (which is ok), MENACE 2 SOCIETY, MALCOLM X, JASON'S LYRIC, ABOVE THE RIM, etc.

I'm sorry people but this is not the right movie for me to have or pick. This is the worst film to date. Same as SHE HATE ME (2004)by Spike Lee which I didn't even care much. It was a huge dissapointment but didn't show enuff sides from his previous films.

For example, try other films instead of this one.


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