Starring Billy Bob Thornton, Tony Cox, Brett Kelly, Lauren Graham, Lauren Tom, Bernie Mac, John Ritter
Written By: Glenn Ficarra, John Requa
Directed By: Terry Zwigoff
Studio: Dimension Home video
Buy on Amazon.com

Bad Santa is not your normal Christmas movie. There’s excessive cursing, buttsex, fucksticks, suicide attempts, robbery, murder and fun for the whole family…NOT! But all those things make for a truly great anti-Christmas movie!

Bad Santa takes place in Arizona and follows around a sloppy, drunken, safecracking, excessive swearing, crooked Santa Claus named Willie (Billy Boy Thornton). His partner in crime is a real midget Marcus, played brilliantly by Tony Cox. The two rob malls every year as the Santa and Elf duo and get away with it. Willie wants out the business and just wants to live in Miami and be a bartender and look at hot women’s asses all day long. Don’t we all! Marcus calls him around that special time of year again and they are off to Arizona for another scam. Willie keeps getting worst with being a lazy, don’t give a shit about anything drunk and Marcus isn’t putting up with it. Their scam gets noticed from the mall’s head security officer Gin (Bernie Mac), and he wants half their stealings. It’s either half or he rats them out to the police. While all this happens, Willie befriends a chubby, lovable, doesn’t know better kid named Thurman Merman (Brett Kelly). Willie stays in the kid’s house with his Grandmother since his father is away “hiking in the mountains”, AKA in prison haha. Willie sort of teaches the kid tough love, and how to defend himself and becomes the father figure Thurman so desperately needs, and Willie also starts to come around and like the kid back.

While I’m not really a big Billy Bob fan, I feel this is one of his best movies he ever did. Forget Sling Blade or whatever, this is his movie like Pirates of the Caribbean is for Johnny Depp’s. Both actors just went for the gusto and succeeded. I just can’t believe how much cursing is in this movie, even I was started to say to myself, man he’s cursing up a storm. I’d also cringe when he cursed in front of the kid. That’s something I try to avoid (and unsuccessfully might I add haha), and he just let’s them fly at will. I think the chemistry between Tony Cox and Billy Bob was really good and made the movie more fun to watch. The two of them bantering at each other is hilarious. The other cast is great as well. Lauren Graham plays Willie’s girlfriend and she’s looking really hot in this film. John Ritter is funny as the inept manager of the mall. Sadly, This was his last movie and you don’t see too much of him after a certain point in the movie. Bernie Mac plays the prick head Security guy very well. The argument between Tony Cox and Bernie Mac was excellent as well. I would never have thought to put my money on a midget arguing with Bernie Mac haha.

As far as the movie is concerned, it’s one of those movies I’ll watch over and over again and never get old to me. And when you look past all the cursing and non Xmas things, it actually does have a good story. It teaches kids that you have to be a prick to get far in life and not get pushed around all the time. It also shows that stealing doesn’t always work, and you’ll eventually get caught. The film also teaches kids that fat people need loving too, and if you nail them in the right spot, they won’t shit right for a week. Yup, real ethical stuff right there. Actually, this isn’t a kid movie and if you actually have your kid watch this, there’s something wrong with you ha. There’s just so many laugh out loud moments in this movie like Willie walking in a parking lot and just freely chucks a liquor bottle onto a car. Other scenes I enjoyed were girls volleyball scene, the boxing ring, the bullies getting beat up for picking on the kid, and arguments between Mac and Cox. The Kid in the movie is so cute and helpless, I just feel so bad for him for some reason. Though I think the ending is great and shows the kid isn’t a lost cause. This is the unrated version of the movie and 7 minutes was added back into the movie. Some stuff I didn’t really notice. Though I did notice more scenes in Florida like a hilarious car robbery scene with Willie, there’s extended scenes where Willie picks up an underage girl at the mall, extended death scene, extended sex scenes and a few other things here and there. But there isn’t anything drastically different from the other one. But if I was going to pick which version I’d get, it would be the unrated longer version. Sometimes while watching this movie, you can’t believe what’s happening on screen, but that’s what makes this movie so awesome. It steps over the line and takes a few jumps further. That’s my kind of comedy! If this movie was done like other Xmas comedies, it wouldn’t have been successful and would have been just another same old boring comedy flick.

The extras were kind of weak in my opinion. The gag reels and outtakes were funny, and the few deleted scenes weren’t that special. There’s one scene where Willie is at Santa training class with Sara Silverman as the teacher. That was okay, but I can see why it was cut. There’s a Behind the Scenes featurette and that’s about it for extras. There’s no commentary but I’d probably wouldn’t listen to it right away anyway. As far as video and audio are concerned, the video looks great and the audio as well. I didn’t notice any problems with it.

If you love or hate Christmas, you might like this movie. It all depends on your brand of humor and what you think is funny. To me, I found this to be hilarious and didn’t get offended at all but then again, I have a sick sense of humor. Here’s a good test for you to see if this is your style of movie, just picture Richard Pryor writing a movie about Christmas and this is probably what you’d get. I highly recommend this movie though. But what the hell do I know.

Features:
n- Deleted and Alternate Scenes
n- Behindn-then-Scenes Special
n- Outtakes
n- “Badder Santa” Gag Reel

Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1 CC

Video:
Widescreen 1.85:1 Color (Anamorphic)

Subtitles:

Favorite Scenes: Scenes in Florida, All the Santa with the kids scenes, Beating up the bullies, Lauren Graham in a bra, Gin vs Marcus
Rating: Rated NR
Running Time: 93 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: