WhatzUp

Bad Santa
by Derek Neff

Terry Zwigoff’s Bad Santa is a defiantly crude movie, replete with obscenities and sexual references and low-blow violence and heavy drinking and public urinating. It features Billy Bob Thornton doing something in a plus-size woman’s changing room that might even make you blush, and it shows actress Lauren Graham “enjoying” Santa Claus in a way that becomes more disturbing the more you think about it.

Having said that, it’s also quite funny. I saw the movie last winter, when it was still playing at the theaters, and I remember laughing out loud a lot. Watching it again recently on video, however, I found myself sort of wondering what had been so hilarious the first time. Sure, I still laughed, just not as confidently. The jokes come from such a dark place that laughter doesn’t quite seem the appropriate reaction, much of the time.

` Willie (Thornton) and hard-boiled dwarf Marcus (Tony Cox) form a Santa and elf team working at a new department store in a new location every Christmas season. On the last night of the job they break into the store’s safe and steal all of the cash, then disappear. They’ve been doing it so long that they’ve become bored with each other, bored with the job, bored with themselves. Oh, and Willie is a bitterly self-destructive loser who drinks more than any character in any movie since Leaving Las Vegas.

The funniest scenes have John Ritter in them. Ritter - in his last role - plays an uptight, politically correct store manager who wants to fire Willie and Marcus but fears being sued if he does. I’ll resist the urge to eulogize Ritter’s comedic talents here, though I will say that I miss him more than I ever would have guessed when he was still alive. His appearance in Sling Blade remains one of my favorite supporting actor performances of all time, and he’s very, very good here, too.

The most indelible thing in Bad Santa, though, is the character of Thurman (Brett Kelly), a chubby eight-year-old boy, routinely terrorized by bullies, who lives with his senile grandmother. When Willie realizes that Thurman lives in a nice house virtually by himself, he invites himself there as a house-guest. Thurman is a sad boy with a horrible life, and the disjunction between his unfortunate situation and the tone of the rest of the movie makes for an unsettling experience. Having seen it two times now, I still think Bad Santa is a good movie; I just don’t think it’s quite as funny as I did before.