BEFORE: Well, it's been quite a week, but then again, I was sort of expecting that. I was scheduled for more hours than usual, from a Saturday night screening of a film I worked on that was screening at the theater where I ALSO work, through 14-hour work days on Tuesday, Wednesday AND Friday. I must be some kind of glutton for punishment. Yesterday was Friday the 13th and I was working the premiere of a VERY big film (hint: Zimmerman) and I was on outdoor duty most of the night, and it was freakin' cold. One woman passed out as she was crossing through the barricades, and even though there were security guards all around I still had to make sure she was attended to, and that the police officer next to me called an ambulance, and then I had to check with the EMTs to make sure she was OK. Then, after midnight when I was trying to get the theater back in order and go home, I slipped and fell outside and got a cut on my head. Not a bad one, I'm just lucky I didn't do any more damage to myself, I landed on my shoulder so that's going to hurt for a while - thankfully the job's winding down for the school's winter break, so I'll have a lot of time at home to recover coming up very soon.
Mel Gibson carries over again from "Bandit". You probably figured out this was coming, this is a Christmas movie coming in a bit early, but the schedule dictated this going here so I could get to two more Christmas movies in the week after next.
THE PLOT: A rowdy, unorthodox Santa Claus is fighting to save his declining business. Meanwhile, Billy, a neglected and precocious 12 year old, hires a hit man to kill Santa after receiving a lump of coal in his stocking.
AFTER: This is part of a trend in Christmas movies to "modernize" the Santa Claus story, I think between the Tim Allen "Santa Clause" films (never seen them) and others like "Santa Claus: The Movie" this has been going on for some time now. So Mel Gibson is the latest to take on a Santa with a more contemporary feel - last year it was Kurt Russell in "The Christmas Chronicles" and the voice of J.K. Simmons in "Klaus" before that. If I'm being honest I was kind of hoping I could link to "Violent Night" with David Harbour, but it just wasn't in the cards based on what I watched in November. Maybe next year - also that movie "Red One" is in theaters now, with J.K. Simmons (again?) playing a modern, very fit and muscular Santa. Not sure how I feel about that, but like I always say, put it on the list, maybe I can get to it some time in the future.
I had a couple beers tonight, a little holiday cheer, one was a Deep River "Ginger Snapped" oatmeal stout, with hints of molasses, ginger and other spices. As soon as I saw Mel Gibson as Santa shooting up some beer cans, I figured I made the right choice to pair the beer with the film. I could probably do a whole different blog about what beer or cocktail to pair with each movie, but you know, there's a reason why I don't usually do this, because I get sleepy enough watching movies as it is. But tonight I could use a little "muscle relaxant" because of the shoulder pain. Earlier today we also drove out to Long Island so my wife could get smokes, and after we had lunch at a place called Shennanigan's (really) we hit up a holiday market, and there was a brewery there, Great South Bay, and I picked up another six of their Roasty Toasty stout. Dark beers for winter, that's my jam.
Anyway, Gibson puts a new spin on Santa Claus here, or Chris Cringle, really. It's weird that they play this one so straight, like it's a comedy but one that takes itself way too serious or something. How do you balance the typical nonsense and frivolity of the usual Santa story? Well, I guess by depicting the workshop as a failing business, even with the U.S. government subsidizing it and giving Santa a big check every month. By delivering Christmas presents to all the good children, he's helping the U.S. economy, err, somehow, I guess in a roundabout way if he delivers presents then Christmas is a big deal, and then people go out and buy food for Christmas dinner and presents for each other and all of that boosts the U.S. GDP. Right? It's trickle-up economics, or something. Santa's actions help the Dow Jones index?
Oh, and Santa's not just an action hero here, he's got some kind of super-powers, like he's super-strong (has to be, to lift all those toys) and he's got a super memory (again, he has to, to maintain such a long gift list every year) and by extension super-speed if he can deliver to millions of houses in one night. Very conveniently, we don't actually see him delivering on Christmas Eve, because really, he's so fast you can't catch him on camera, so don't even try - but we do see him coming back to the workshop on Christmas morning, after being shot and getting ready to heal with his super-healing power. Come on, who shot Santa? It's not like his sleigh looks anything like a drone or a foreign military plane!
But again, things are not all fine at the workshop, because Santa's been giving out more and more coal every year to the bad kids (this tracks too, kids have been getting worse, thanks to social media bullying and also regular bullying, not to mention ADHD and being over-sugared and over-caffeinated and over-weight, this new generation of kids is probably the naughtiest ever.). So the government's cut Santa's check in half, since he only delivered gifts to about half of the kids. But the flipside of this is that Santa himself has been keeping America's coal producers in business, despite the push to switch to cleaner energy sources. Windmills are bad for the coal industry, but naughty kids are GREAT for it.
One kid in particular has spent too much time alone, his rich father is off on business trips to the Caribbean again and again, so he's raised by his grandmother and the house staff, so he pretty much gets whatever he wants, or he figures out a way to get it. He even hires a hit-man to kidnap the little girl who won the science fair so he could threaten her into giving up her first-place ribbon so he could win instead of being first runner-up. Parents, do you SEE what happens to your kids when you never say "NO" to them? They just turn into entitled brats, and your actions (or inactions) allow this to happen.
Santa, the voice of reason here, and also a couple centuries of arcane knowledge and elf management, gives this rich kid the lump of coal he deserves - but little Billy decides to dip into grandma's checking account again and hire the hit-man to take Santa Claus out. The hit-man, who's listed in the credits only as "Skinny Man" is willing to take the job because he's got his own agenda against the Fatman, at some point Santa stopped fulfilling his Christmas wish list. (Well, we find out near the end of the film that the child who later became Skinny Man had very unreasonbale requests, but I guess that's neither here nor there, because he still holds that grudge.)
So while Chris Cringle is forced to re-tool his workshop to produce jet fighter control panels for the U.S. Dept. of Defense - and after telling his elves this will only be for two months, anyway it's the slow season because no kids have Christmas requests in January or February, and they can go back to making toys in March - there's a killer driving up through Canada in the days after Christmas to reach Santa's workshop, which is somewhere in Alaska, it turns out. This hit-man is slick, he couldn't find any record online about where that workshop is, so he tracked him through the mail - those letters that kids write to Santa have to go somewhere, don't they?
Once he's found the right town, it only takes a little bit of asking around to find out that Cringle comes by every few days to check his P.O. box, and that he drives a red Ford pick-up (again, makes sense) and then he follows him back to the workshop and reindeer farm. Though perhaps he wasn't expecting to encounter the U.S. military there, overseeing the new assembly line. Again, all of this is played STRAIGHT, like we're supposed to take this all very very seriously, which, in itself, is quite hilarious. So it's funny how non-funny this film is, if that makes sense.
Oh, you can TRY to kill Santa, but again, he's got Wolverine-like healing, and also he's super-strong and super durable and also he's not bad with weapons either. Yeah, if you come for the Fatman you'd better bring an army. One hit-man with a sniper rifle just isn't going to cut it. I suppose that's not as comforting as it sounds, but it's what we're asked to play along with here. Santa may be a couple hundred years old and also may have fallen on some hard times, but the jolly old elf still has some tricks up his sleeve.
Santa learns the hard way, though, what this new Generation Alpha is capable of - like hiring a hit-man to take him out and not even feeling bad about it. Oh, well, yeah, that's going to change now that Santa knows the score, he's got to change with the times and it's time to send out a new message to the entitled pre-teens: straighten up and fly right, because the big fluffy gloves are OFF. So, umm, you better watch out. That's it, cry or don't cry, but you better watch out because he's coming to town. And he's pissed off. Hey, maybe this IS the Santa Claus that the next generation needs, after all.
Also starring Walton Goggins (last seen in "Three Christs"), Marianne Jean-Baptiste (last heard in "The Sea Beast"), Chance Hurstfield (last seen in "Coffee & Kareem"), Susanne Sutchy, Robert Bockstael, Michael Dyson (last seen in "Murder at 1600"), Deborah Grover (last seen in "Alice, Darling"), Ellison Grier Butler, Eric Woolfe (last seen in "It: Chapter Two"), Lynne Adams (last seen in "Shattered Glass"), Ekaterina Baker (last seen in "The Protégé"), Natale Darbyson (last seen in "The Hummingbird Project"), Robert Reynolds (ditto), Corbin Smyth Currie, Paul Whitney, Paulino Nunes (last seen in "The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day"), Kate Hurman, John Tokatlidis, Sean Devine (last seen in "Bad Santa 2"), Sean Tucker (last seen in "Pieces of a Woman"), Shaun Benson (last seen in "K-19: The Widowmaker"), Mikael Conde (last seen in "Midway"), Ronald Tang, Peter Chow, Jack Sivyer, Xavier X. Sotelo, Alexa Devine, Ellen Manchee, Bill Turnbull (last seen in "Little Italy"), Daniel Garcia, Dylan Roberts (last seen in "Amelia"), Jason Gosbee (last seen in "White House Down"), Stefan Keyes, Bill Lake (last seen in "Special Correspondents"), Michelle Lang, Michael Dickson, Gordon Finley, Mireille Gagne, Claude Guertin, Claude Huard, Caren MacNevin, Kevin Barry McIntyre, Joyce Rivera and the voice of Tom Fugedi.
RATING: 6 out of 10 glasses of milk
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