Z/Web

This is one of the most outrageous, disgusting films of all time. And it’s also one of the funniest. The story is simple: we have a crook who gets a job as a mall Santa every Christmas season to case a joint, and at the end of the year, robs the mall safe and loots the stores. That gives him enough money to get drunk until next Christmas. This Santa’s a hard luck case all right. He’s a Loser with a capital L. He’s mean, vicious, and a real jerk. He complains about how his life is hell and contemplates suicide. At first, the main joke seems to be watching “Santa” use the f-word, get drunk, and screw. But then Santa meets a fat little boy who’s developmentally challenged and appears to think Santa’s real. Nothing Santa does fazes the kid, who still seems to think Santa’s God. When Santa discovers the boy lives alone with his senile Grandmother, he moves into the kid’s nice house. The kid’s dad is off “mountaineering” for several years (he’s really in prison for an accounting discrepency) so Santa, in effect, becomes the kid’s dad. Gradually, though Santa’s still rude, crude, and socially unexceptable, he begins to be a little nicer to the kid, eventually helping him. The Santa never becomes an angel or anything, but at least he’s started on the path to redeeming himself. This film’s a lot like the cult classic, Shakes the Clown, Bobcat Goldthwait’s hilarious movie about a drunken birthday party clown. Both are uneven, with the key humor coming from normally positive characters (Santa or a clown) acting crude. This one’s a bit more of a story, however. They did an amazing job of keeping the Santa semi-likeable (somehow) despite his jerk behavior, so that we actually root for him in the end. But neither movie is for all tastes, that’s for sure. If you like your humor dark and mean, you’ll probably like this. If you’re looking for a typical Christmas feel-good movie, go see Elf instead.