I
didn’t make up a list of my ten favorite films of
2003, but if I had Bad Santa would have been on
it. (So would The Fog of War, The Triplets
of Belleville, Master and Commander, Open
Range, I Vitelloni, Blue Car, The
Secret Lives of Dentists, Kill Bill, Vol. 1,
and City of God.)
Terry Zwigoff’s
second feature does not have the sharp Crumb-like eye for
the odd detail, the lived sense of growing up different,
or the bittersweet satiric touch of his first, Ghost
World, which traces the misalliances of a talented,
half-pretty young oddball, who knows exactly what she doesn’t
want to do with her life (which is, be like everyone else),
but hasn’t a clue about what she does. Bad Santa
is much more conventional in plot and character. A
queasy, sardonic take on the Scrooge story, there is little
sweet about it, though there is plenty that is bitter—and
gut-splittingly funny.
Our hero is Willie T.
Soke—a caustically miserable small-time crook, retch-in-an-alley
drunk, perverted-sex addict, and full-time, self-loathing
loser, who spreads self-disgust the way televangelists spread
the gospel. Willie arrives in that sacred season of giving,
of Christmas trees, carols, and luminaria (Willie’s
catches on fire and has to be stamped out), of papier-mâché
reindeers in department store windows (one of which Willie
destroys in a stupor bordering on alcoholic psychosis),
of the North Pole and Santa’s little helpers (both
of which Willie gets quizzed disturbingly about by a forlorn
little fat kid desperately in need of a dad), and Santa
Claus himself (whom, most improbably of all, Willie plays
every Christmas in department stores around the country,
as part of scam run by his black midget accomplice, Marcus).
Willie and Marcus’
scheme is cute if somewhat unlikely. After sacrificing themselves
to mall-rat kids and their peckish moms for two weeks every
December (Marcus playing Santa’s elfin helper, and
Willie insulating himself with so much bourbon that he periodically
urinates in his Santa suit with children in his lap), they
take advantage of their inside-employee status to crack
the store’s safe on Christmas Eve, and haul away all
that unbanked last-minute-shopper’s cash. (The midget
also takes the opportunity to rifle through the store’s
clothing and jewelry departments for his tough-as-nails,
mail-order Vietnamese wife.)
Though most of the humor
in Bad Santa depends on escalating bad taste—an
escalation that apparently continues on DVD with the announcement
of an unrated version of the flick, called Badder Santa—any
film in which a grownup tells a child to put what he hopes
for in one hand and what he defecates in the other and see
which hand fills up first can’t be all bad. Even the
film’s sentimental subplot—which involves the
kid just mentioned (played with wonderful deadpan drollery
by Brett Kelly), his grandma (Cloris Leachman), who when
she isn’t lying comatose in front of the TV just wants
to make sandwiches for everyone, and an adorable bartender
(Lauren Graham), who missed out on Christmas as a kid and
has a thing for doing it with SC—is laced with far
too much gall to be cloying. Plus, because Billy Bob Thornton
inhabits the thankless role of Willie so convincingly (and
hilariously) that we actually come to care for the lacerating
son-of-a-bitch (in spite of his “three-B” philosophy
of life—booze, broads, and...well, I’ll skip
the third), we don’t resent the deus ex machina
“happy ending” as much as we should, though
the hilariously black one that Zwigoff teases us with would
have been more honest and satisfying. (The happy ending
was apparently Miramax’s idea; perhaps Badder
Santa restores Zwigoff’s original.)
Between his transcendent
comic performance here and his wonderful turn as Davy Crockett
in the (otherwise worthless) Alamo, Billy Bob Thornton
is having a vintage year. Then again, everyone in this movie
gives a vintage performance, from Tony Cox as the foul-mouthed
dwarf Marcus, to Bernie Mac as the duplicitous, orange-eating
(well, orange-sucking) store detective Gin, to John Ritter
(in his last role) as the well-meaning, much-put-upon store
manager Bob Chipeska, whose agony after he overhears Willie
having sex with a willing female customer in Ladies Big
& Tall is priceless. The film’s mercilessly profane
characterizations and jet-black storyline, improbably scripted
by John Requa and Glenn Ficarra (the same team who brought
us the so-not-funny Cats & Dogs), makes Bad
Santa the world champ of irreverent Christmas flicks,
which, in my book, also makes it some kind of classic.
I am delighted to report
that Miramax’s transfer is reference-quality. (My
Lord, the Weinsteins have gotten their acts together when
it comes to DVD!) And the soundtrack, which, believe it
or not, includes a sonically spiffy version of Bing Crosby
singing “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,”
is terrific, too. I can’t think of a surer way to
indulge in a bit of holiday cheer, even in the dog days
of September. Jonathan Valin |
Bad
Santa (2003)
