Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Matt Drudge is an idiot. His hyper-sissy reportage of Disney’s alleged “outrage” at seeing BAD SANTA reads like the worst kind of attempted smear, part of his ongoing attempts to create discontent in the House of Mouse when there is none. Even worse, the people that have picked up his fabricated bullshit and reprinted it are either bored by a slow news week or completely unable to think for themselves. Fuck Drudge. Let’s hear from someone with a sense of humor and see what they think of the movie:
First off, get the kids the fuck out of the room.
Now.
I mean it. I’m gonna use a whole lot of fucking language, and I don’t wanna hear any of you pansy responsible parent-type motherfuckers complaining because I said shitpisscocksuckerdamnfuckturd or whatever.
They gone yet? Good.
Willie Soke is a fucking scumbag, pure and simple. He’s a drunk. He’s a womanizing ass-man. He’s rude. He’s unclean. He pisses himself. He can’t say a sentence without dropping 28 f-bombs. He hates children, which kind of sucks because he works as a department store Santa.
Shit, I like the motherfucker already.
That being said, BAD SANTA is truly a showcase for the understated comedic timing of Billy Bob Thorton. His Santa is not just a cranky fucking boozehound, he’s also a safecracker who robs the department store he works at every year and moves on to a new town.
His partners, played by the absofuckinlutely hilarious Tony Cox and Lauren Tom, rope him in yearly for his expertise at opening the store safes every Christmas Eve. The problem is, Willie’s been slipping of late. He shows up for work drunk. He cusses at the kids. He gets in fights with Nativity scene animals. He’s a self-destructive, suicidal mess.
Things turn around for Willie when the crew move on to Phoenix, Arizona for a rich new score. The manager of the store (John Ritter – who knocks this one out of the fucking ballpark – you’ll be missed, big guy) is rather suspicious of this bastard and his dwarf sidekick. Perhaps it’s Willie’s booze-breath, or his language…or maybe it’s what he catches Willie doing in Big and Tall. The manager calls on his ace store detective Gin Slagel (Bernie Mac) to check up on the pair. Gin’s a mean bastard who shakes down shoplifters and knows every dirty trick in the book.
It appears that Willie might be in trouble.
Then, Willie meets The Kid.
The Kid is a bigger mess than he is. He’s fat. He’s not particularly bright. He’s such a loser, he couldn’t even become a TalkBacker. He’s a sad, pathetic little kid who lives with his grandmother (Cloris Leachman) because his dad is off exploring mountains (read: in prison for embezzlement) and his mom is off somewhere in a cult or something. He has no friends. He has no prospects in life.
Willie takes up with a hot bartender (the always lovely Lauren Graham) with a Santa fetish. After a quicky in the back of his shitbox car, Santa gets assaulted by a guy from the bar and is saved by the Kid. An uneasy friendship ensues.
Willie is definitely in trouble.
See, Willie doesn’t really want anything to do with the little bastard. But, the Kid is just so dumbly pitiable, he gets a ride home in Santa’s shitbox. Willie goes in with the intention of robbing Granny, but instead she runs off to the kitchen to make him sandwiches.
At this point, the conventional comedy about a sociopathic assclown who burglarizes stores while dressed as Santa would have Willie have some Grinch-esque moment of clarity and all would be right in the world. Not BAD SANTA. No siree. Willie opens the safe and steals all the money from the house. Then, he steals the daddy’s Beemer.
Willie goes home to his shitty motel room and finds someone ransacking the place -- a cop, according to his hooker neighbor. Someone is on to them. With little time before the Christmas Eve job and nowhere else to go, he ends up on the Kid’s doorstep.
Brett Kelly is just fucking PERFECT as The Kid. I just imagine that when Joel and Ethan Coen wrote the original story for this movie, they pictured a kid that looked just like him. I don’t know if there’s a niche for chubby loser kid in Hollywood, but this kid deserves all the fucking work he can get.
Sure, Willie’s gonna get to like the Kid a little. Sure, Willie’s gonna get the Christmas Spirit in him. Sure, Willie’s gonna fuck that bartender in the daddy’s hot tub. Yessir, Willie’s gonna tap that ass.
Billy Bob Thorton fits into the skin of Willie Soke well. Too well, perhaps. I can’t be sure anymore that he’s not a vodka-swilling foul mouthed peckerhead with a penchant for anal sex with plus-size women. He’s too good. Too convincing. Unfortunately, this means that whenever I watch SLING BLADE from now on, I’ll know why he keeps mumbling “MMMMMM HMMMMM”. Damn him for making this movie. Damn him straight to hell.
The script, by John Requa and Glen Ficarra, never really lets the holiday spirit have its due. Every time you think something heartwarming is going to happen, Zwigoff and company make sure someone pukes or gets fucking kicked in the nuts. Even when you think there’s going to be a happy ending, you get handed the equivalent a two year-old store-bought fruitcake that some fucking whino took a piss on.
The only complaint I have about the whole shebang is that there’s no nudity. I suppose with the sheer fucking volume of language in the motherfucker, they figured that a tit or two would drive the MPAA to stamp the movie with an NC-17. But, c’mon…it’s the holidays… Can’t Santa bring us some breastesses? PLEEEEAAAAASE?
This is the perfect holiday movie for cynical fucking assholes. You get a dastardly bastard Santa. A foul-mouthed dwarf in elf-ears. Lauren Graham screaming “Fuck me, Santa! Fuck me, Santa!” over and over again. Crime. Violence. Harsh language. What more could you ask for (aside from the ta-tas)?
I loved BAD SANTA and can’t wait until I can add it to my Christmas movie collection. I suppose it’ll look good on a shelf next to IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE…provided I prop it the fuck up with a bottle of Old Grand Dad…
Happy Holidays, fuckers.
-- Uncle Fucka
Nice, man. Can’t wait. And did I mention that Drudge is a thin-skulled dink who loves to make trouble? Yeah… the executives who have only been tinkering with BAD SANTA for a year didn’t actually know what was in it. Right.
"Moriarty" out.
