“Violent Night” is an ornament-laced wreath of unappealing faux-edgy bits of cinema. Every character other than Santa Claus (David Harbour) and sweet little Trudy (Leah Brady) is a horrible person – the type where you either want them to be killed or you don’t care. The tone is uneven, in a bad way. For a while (in what’s actually the best 5 minutes), it’s inexplicably like “Home Alone,” with bad guys stumbling into Trudy’s traps.
‘Fatman’ did it better
As far as non-traditional Santa Claus action movies go, “Fatman” (2020) did it better. That’s a fairly straightforward actioner with a very human Santa Claus; its tongue is not in its cheek to the degree of “Violent Night.” Admittedly, I don’t mind the magical Santa that Harbour plays; the magic does allow him to have superpowers and continue his one-man battle against the home-invading bad guys, led by “Mr. Scrooge” (John Leguizamo, phoning it in – but to be fair, it’s that type of role).
“Violent Night” plays like writers Pat Casey and Josh Miller wrote a draft and then director Tommy Wirkola immediately started shooting. As we meet the spoiled-rich family (led by – in a fun bit of casting – “Christmas Vacation’s” Beverly D’Angelo), it’s a competition to see who can be the naughtiest. I immediately wanted to turn the movie off, but needed something to review for Christmas Day.
“Violent Night” (2022)
Director: Tommy Wirkola
Writers: Pat Casey, Josh Miller
Stars: David Harbour, John Leguizamo, Beverly D’Angelo
These characterizations come from a place of smarm and snark within Casey and Miller, but they lack the cleverness and variety of, for instance, the “Knives Out” family. When Scrooge’s goons come in, it’s a case of bad people threatening, torturing and killing other bad people. It’s not fun to watch, even in a puerile way.
Seeing Harbour’s Santa do heroic (and violent, but only by necessity) things is slightly more palatable. His interactions with Trudy, the obligatory kid who believes in Santa Claus, checks the boxes. Dominic Lewis does good work here with the music – in the sense that I wouldn’t mind listening to it on its own – including “Silent Night”-as-action-score.
Not as clever as it thinks
Within “Violent Night’s” context, though, I thought “This music is better than what it’s playing over.” The film also soundtracks some violent action scenes. This is the expected “dark comedy” wherein a cheery Christmas song backs Santa stabbing a bad guy with a pointy candy cane and saying “Suck on this.”
I suppose if a viewer had never heard of “Fatman” or “Anna and the Apocalypse” or “Die Hard” or “Home Alone” or “Bad Santa” or the “Black Christmas” films, they might find “Violent Night’s” mix of Yuletide iconography and action-film gore and one-liners to be ingenious.
To someone who watches a lot of films, “Violent Night” is cynical in its obvious violence and dark “comedy.” Whether it was cranked out or not, it feels like it was. Yet it’s also boring; if it’s a ride, it’s one you want to abandon.
The film’s opening scene sets, if not the tone, then at least the level: A bartender sees the glorious sight of Santa’s sleigh flying overhead, then the drunken Santa pukes on her head. At least the frosted cookies he ingested make the puke colorful.