Violent Night (2022)
Directed by: Tommy Wirkola
Written by: Josh Miller, Pat Casey
Starring: Alex Hassell, David Harbour, John Leguizamo, Leah Brady
USA
IN CINEMAS NOW
RUNNING TIME: 112 mins
REVIEWED BY: Dr Lenera
It’s Christmas Eve, and Santa Claus doesn’t like the way that children have become so materialistic, in a world increasingly unaware that he actually exists. Meanwhile Jason Lightstone, his estranged wife Linda, and their daughter Trudy pay their annual visit to the mansion of Jason’s mother, the foul mouthed corporate titan Gertrude, plus his alcoholic sister Alva, her new boyfriend and wannabe-action star Morgan Steel, and Alva’s online streamer son Bertrude. However, no sooner have they arrived when a team of mercenaries, led by Mr Scrooge, storm the place, kill the staff and take the family members hostage. They want to break into the family vault and abscond with $300 million in cash, but Santa is also in the house, and he’s no saint….
Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? That’s something which is debated among film lovers. Yes, it takes place during Christmas Eve and, technically, some of Christmas Day, but is that enough to make it a fully fledged Christmas film? Personally I’d say yes, and yes also to Lethal Weapon, though admittedly I might be partly saying that just so I have even more of an excuse watch those action classics, and there are certainly many who believe that a proper Christmas movie must have certain themes. Well, here’s Violent Night, which seems to be in part aimed at Die Hard lovers who can now have something similar yet which is also so Christmassy it stars Santa himself. Of course the word “similar” might be stretching things somewhat. Violent Night isn’t anywhere near in the same class as its chief inspiration, but then again I doubt anyone would expect it to be. It’s not as good as Bad Santa and Home Alone either, the other two films which clearly inspired this one, and I don’t even like Home Alone much [sorry]. The slightly similar Fat Man from 2020 which starred Mel Gibson as the man in the coca cola suit was actually a much more interesting piece of work even if it was also something of a mess. The trailer gave the impression of a jokey bloodbath, though it’s actually much more sentimental and fantastical than you might expect, which will please some and displease others in equal measure I suppose. The idea of Santa being a hard-ass who dispatches bad guys in creative ways is undoubtedly a thin premise that can only be stretched so far, but all that schmaltz seems to belong in a different movie. And yes, Bad Santa also had a bit of that, but it felt far more organic and natural. Here, screenwriters Pat Casey and Jason Miller get rather stuck trying to do major things, a surprise seeing how well they fared with Sonic The Hedgehog.
We first meet Santa in a Bristol pub where a shopping mall Santa is also propping up the same bar. The real Santa explains why he’s become so disenchanted with the job – greedy, self-centered kids who only want more video games – while a few comments that only the real Santa would probably say are just accepted because he’s blotto. He eventually heads up to the roof where his sleigh and reindeer are waiting, and flies off with his reindeer and sleigh. The lady who was behind the bar is able to catch this amazing sight, before catching a face-full of vomit from Santa [who shouldn’t be drunk driving anyway]. Well I chuckled, and also when the reindeer shit once again on another roof, though of course genuine wit is absent. On his rounds, Santa raids household booze while chomping on cookies and eschewing skimmed milk. He’s basically a slob, yet still holds a soft spot for “nice” kids. And Trudy is definitely a nice kid but one can’t say that all members of her family are also nice. Estranged mum and dad are fine, but when they visit Grandma’s huge house Grandma is first seen swearing down the phone at some senator she was trying to make a deal with, her daughter Alva is pissed yet also trying to please her mother in every way, Alva’s “action star” boyfriend [“popular in some territories in Asia”] Morgan is just very very stupid, and Alva’s son Bertrude is one of those bizarre creatures who records whatever he’s doing to even more bizarre creatures who watch him. Frankly I couldn’t wait for Santa to go medieval on these four, but it doesn’t happen, while it seems that Beverly D’Angelo, Mrs Ellen Griswold herself, has lost her knack for delivering lines in a humorous way. Jason and Linda find an old walkie-talkie, wrap it up and give it to Trudy as an early Christmas present, telling her that she can “talk to Santa” on it. Come again? It’s enough to tell kids about a fictional character who gives them presents, but actually telling them they can talk to Santa, even though he probably can’t reply because he’s “busy”? Come on!
At this stage I didn’t like Jason and Linda much either, who even listen to what Trudy is saying to Santa, her only wish being that they’d get back together, but thankfully the bad guys now turn up. The caterers reveal themselves to be mercenaries with Christmas-themed code names, while “Mr. Scrooge” comes in the front way. They slaughter the staff and take the family hostage. However, Santa is in a room upstairs, having delivered some presents and passed out. He’s discovered by one of the henchmen, whose gunfire scares away the reindeer, and they fight until Santa knocks him out of a window to his death. Stranded, Santa decides to save Trudy and her family from Scrooge, who demands the $300 million in cash that’s in the mansion’s vault, and these villains are genuinely threatening, with virtually no humour emitting from them except for Krampus [a very on form Brendan Fletcher] showing his exasperation at the antics of some of the family members. We’re quite shocked when one character gets a finger cut off. Santa kills another henchman and takes his radio, coming across Trudy’s channel, and finds the mercenaries on his magical naughty list. When Trudy’s walkie-talkie is discovered, Jason tells their captors that she’s simply playing make-believe and declares that Santa isn’t real, causing her to run and hide in the attic. However, Gertrude’s private “kill squad” are on their way. They once rescued her husband from terrorists, and none of the terrorists survived. Their arrival constitutes one of the few genuine surprises of the film, which dawdles for a while before finally giving us loads of what we’ve come to see, along with at least two plot turns which don’t seem to been thought through.
In fact the script by Miller and Casey is often very deficient; just a cursory comparison will reveal how smart Steven E. De Souza’s script for Die Hard was, how it nicely established hero and villain before raising the stakes more and more. In particular there’s the aspect of “Christmas magic” with supposed rules that Santa Claus admits to not understanding, but which comes across more as an admission of laziness on behalf of the screenwriters. Get into a corner with the story, Hey Presto, “Christmas magic” will solve the problem. No, we don’t need everything explained, especially in a fantasy, but a bit more attempt than what we get here would have helped. But then this is a film which obviously thinks that, for example, bandaging a wound with Christmas paper is clever and funny. Some remarks and gags hit home but not very many, and they at least could have tried to give Santa some memorable one-liners. A fair bit of running time is devoted to building the bond between Santa and Trudy, via Trudy’s walkie-talkie. Obviously this is intended to recall Bruce Willis’ John McClane and Reginald VelJohnson’s Al, and Trudy does provide Santa with some valuable information, but their conversations get rather treacly. Is this the kind of thing what viewers of Violent Night would really want? I wouldn’t have thought that someone watching a film where a variety of objects are used by Santa to gorily dispatch his enemies would also want to also sit through a load of sentimentality as well. The schizophrenic nature of the proceedings means that it’s hard to be properly touched by the emotional aspects, despite the very excellent performance of Leah Brady as Trudy who makes you believe her character’s bravery and ingenuity. Quite disgustingly, she’s eight billed despite probably having the most screen time after David Harbour’s Santa, but I think she has a potentially very strong future.
One of the highlights is when some villains come across traps laid by Trudy; it really is like watching the climax of Home Alone but with gore, with one particular nail gag, in a whole sequence of nail gags, even causing the Doc to winch. Urgh! Santa gets to use a candy cane, an icicle, a skating shoe, and Christmas tree star [especially grisly this one], among other holiday items, on his foes, though most prominent is a sledgehammer, something he’s had for centuries. We get a brief flashback to Santa before he became Santa, and it’s more baffling than anything else. I guess that Casey, Miller and director Tommy Wirkola were hoping that enough interest would be generated for them to give us a sequel which will fill us in on lots of things, and to be fair their film is doing quite well, though I sensed a lack of satisfaction in people as I left the auditorium. While we certainly get a lot of crowd pleasing kills, the action isn’t very exciting, lacking much energy and even looking clumsy at times during the fight scenes. A snowmobile chase is especially disappointing; it seems that things are really getting thrilling here, but then it ends. At least Wirkola avoids overly quick cutting and “vomit-cam” so you can at least see clearly what’s going on, but elsewhere he gives actors a huge number of closeups. Still, Harbour is clearly having a ball, and is good enough so that we really want Santa to save the day whereas we might not even care otherwise, which certainly makes up for a slightly unsure Leguizumo; he’s perfectly okay, but his performance is a bit lacking in the energy this rather underrated and even underused actor is able to often bring to the table.
Unusual versions of Christmas songs are heard before the score by Dominic Lewis takes over, but even that incorporates some familiar melodies in a neat yet logical fashion. If only the film in general possessed that kind of focus. It’s undeniably sporadically entertaining, there are moments you’ll definitely remember, and good work is definitely being done by some, but – well – I was about to say that it could have been so much better but actually I’m not sure if that’s true. In any case, it’s the serious script deficiencies which let Violent Night down the most. More time was clearly needed here, or a surer hand in the director’s chair to help compensate for these issues. People will still be arguing over Die Hard being a Christmas film or not by the time Violent Night has been almost forgotten.
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