DAVID HARBOUR’S DRUNKEN SANTA MAKES FOR A SURPRISINGLY FUN ACTION HERO IN VIOLENT, IRREVERENT FESTIVE THRILLER
FOUL-MOUTHED,
to the lyrics of Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town, “He knows if you’ve been bad or good/ So be good for goodness sake”. That plea certainly doesn’t apply to the figurehead of Christmas in director Tommy Wirkola’s giddily irreverent home invasion thriller. The ample-bellied man in the red suit is drunk and disorderly in charge of reindeer, unapologetically profane and deeply disrespectful of homeowners and their property (especially liquor cabinets).
Santa Claus (David Harbour) enjoys a couple of beers at a pub in Bristol on Christmas Eve before he takes flight in his reindeerpulled sleigh.
He materialises down the chimney of greedy matriarch Gertrude Lightstone (Beverly D’Angelo) just as criminal mastermind Mr Scrooge (John Leguizamo) storms the mansion with an army of goons led by right-hand man Gingerbread (Andre Eriksen).
The intruders are targeting $300 million in the Lightstone family vault. They take hostages including Gertrude’s son Jason (Alex Hassell), his wife Linda (Alexis Louder) and their young daughter Trudy (Leah Brady).
Gertrude’s money-grabbing daughter Alva (Edi Patterson) is also collateral with her buffoonish action movie star husband MorACCORDING gan (Cam Gigandet) and their bratty, social media-obsessed son Bert (Alexander Elliot).
Santa discovers innocent believer Trudy is in peril and he reluctantly takes matters into his white-gloved hands.
Violent Night gleefully desecrates Yuletide iconography for groans and ghoulish giggles. The naughty list is extensive in Wirkola’s gratuitously gory picture, which boasts John Wick director David Leitch as a producer.
His influence is pronounced in two, stunt-heavy fight sequences: a young girl replicating Home Alone-style booby traps to fend off thugs and a showdown between Santa and gun-toting assailants.
Harbour embraces his character’s Viking past to perform physically demanding brawls without losing the touching emotional connection to Brady’s moppet. On-screen bloodletting is copious including a close encounter with a wood chipper, but the tone is stylised and predominantly comical.
Santa sleighs and slays again.
In cinemas Friday