Film review: ‘VIOLENT NIGHT’ by Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’

The first salvo in the Christmas movie wars for 2022, Violent Night unusually combines raunch comedy, hostage drama, violent (sometimes gory) action and the old redemption through the magic of Christmas fantasy.  It’s a strange combo that recalls Die hard, Home Alone, Bad Santa and weirdly enough the skull-crunching Viking film The Norseman.

David Harbour stars as a genuine Santa Claus who, as a result of marital discord with Mrs Claus and a millennia of delivering presents to ungrateful and increasingly greedy kids, has become disillusioned with his job and with life. Swilling vodka and occasionally vomiting on people, he reluctantly heads off with his reindeer on another Christmas Eve of present dispensing.  His night is seriously disrupted, though, when he descends the chimney of the sprawling mansion owned by the ruthless and mega-rich Lightstone family.  There he finds himself in the middle of a home invasion by brutal mercenaries led by Jimmy Martinez (John Leguizamo) who want to separate the venomous Lightstone matriarch Gertrude (Beverly D’Angelo) from several million bucks.  It’s up to Santa to emerge from his alcohol-induced torpor, kick some serious butt and save the Lightstones.

It’s no revelation to say this is a pretty dubious concept. The potential was there, however, for a satirical romp that pitted the fantasy of Christmas against the ugliness of reality, something Bad Santa did so brilliantly.  For a little while this film almost succeeds.  The comedy is pretty acerbic and the violence (especially from a sledgehammer-wielding Santa) is quite visceral.  Also, there are enough sympathetic characters like Gertrude’s granddaughter Trudy (Leah Brady) to give us some emotional investment in the hostages’ fate.

Unfortunately, holding together this odd combination of elements proves a bit too difficult for director Tommy Wirkola (who previously gave us Nazi zombies in Dead Snow and the extremely disappointing Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters) and in the second half, Violent Night starts to unravel, become very repetitive and a little too silly.

Surprisingly, though, the film contains some strong performances. Harbour commits himself to the character of a dishevelled blood soaked Santa Claus about as much as we might hope while John Leguizamo avoids quirky bad guy parody and plays chief villain Jimmy as a genuinely nasty piece of work.  Beverly D’Angelo is also convincingly dislikeable as the heartless money bags Gertrude.

This is the sort of film that probably would have earned minor cult status as a bloke movie back in the video and DVD rental days.  It’s hardly a redeeming piece of cinema but at least for its first half it qualifies as guilty pleasure.

Nick’s rating: ***

Genre: Drama/ Action/ Comedy/ Christmas movie.

Classification: MA15+.

Director(s): Tommy Wirkola.

Release date: 1st Dec 2022.

Running time: 112 mins.

Reviewer: Nick Gardener can be heard on “Built For Speed” every Friday night from 8-10pm on 88.3 Southern FM.

 

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