Bad Santa

Dir: Terry Zwigoff

2003

****

When you break down all Christmas movies, they are all essentially copies of two or three original classics. Even the Christmas horror films are mostly all the same. Bad Santa is no different really as it's an obvious copy of Dan Aykroyd's 'Santa gone bad' scene in 1983's Trading Places and Miracle on 34th Street. Indeed, The Washington Times described Bad Santa as "The Evil twin of Miracle on 34th Street", like that was a bad thing? We'd had the Good Santa, the Wannabe Santa, the Mistaken for Santa, the Evil Santa, the Real Santa, the Substitute Santa, Memory-loss Santa and even a Robot Santa, so it was about time we had an alcoholic sex addict Santa really. So a Bad Santa, black comedy, written by Terry Zwigoff and the Coen Brothers...what's not to like? It is the welcome relief and much needed antidote to the cheerful, sickly and samey Christmas Christmas films released before and since. Jack Nicholson and Bill Murray were both approached to play Bad Santa but both had other commitments, lucky for Billy Bob Thornton but to be fair this is one of his greatest performances. He only just missed out on the Golden Globe for his performance, Murray eventually winning for his performance in that other commitment. Out of the three actors I think Billy Bob was the right choice. The film is quality viewing for the more cynical film goer but it still has that classic Christmas message so really, this film has something for everyone. Apparently things weren't so clear-cut behind the scenes and the Weinsteins are said to have clashed with Zwigoff (as did the Coens) and they filmed additional sequences behind his back and tampered with the final edit. I hate it when producers get involved with the creative process in this way but this time I guess they were right, as the final film is almost perfect the way it is.