Take a cup of Die Hard, a tablespoon of Home Alone, a little drop of Bad Santa and even just a dash of the 1994 comedy Greedy; pour all of these into a script writing blender, turn it to max and what do you get? You get Violent Night. With a list of ingredients this good, you might expect a new Christmas classic in the making. Unfortunately though, that’s not entirely the case here, as a fun premise is ultimately let down by a lacking screenplay.
The film follows Jolly Saint Nick (David Harbour) as he goes about his Christmas Eve duties. However, he’s anything but jolly rather he’s a jaded, embittered drunk who has just about had enough of the job. As he sits at a bar sinking his misery with a cold one, he laments that the magic is entirely gone from Christmas. Replaced by consumerism as everyone just wants more and more without truly appreciating what they have.
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, a wealthy family is enjoying the misery of one another's company. That is until a team of elite mercenaries, led by a Christmas-hating mastermind who goes by the codename Scrooge (John Leguizamo), invade the estate looking to steal a hefty 300 million dollars located in a massive vault on the premises.
Little do they know that Santa also just happens to have arrived on the premises. Unfortunately for Santa, he finds himself stuck unwillingly in the night from hell as his reindeer flee in fear. Armed with only his bare fists, Santa transforms into John McClane as he takes on the team of mercenaries in a bloody game of cat and mouse.
On paper, there is a lot going for Violent Night that, in the right hands, could have been elevated into a true Christmas classic. But as it is, it kind of just labors in the middle of the road. David Harbour does well enough to carry the film on his back as the completely jaded and worn out Santa, but he is let down by a screenplay that never quite elevates into anything truly remarkable.
At the beginning of the film, we see a montage of Santa going from house to house in his drunken stooper, growing increasingly frustrated by the lack of Christmas spirit as an overabundance of Amazon packages claim real estate under each Christmas tree. One can’t help but be reminded of Billy Bob Thornton’s Bad Santa in these opening scenes and one could be fooled into thinking it might deliver something close to that jaded masterpiece. But sadly, that’s about as far as the film ever goes with the satire.
As he roams the estate silently taking on the mercenaries, he finds himself earning the trust of the plucky young Trudy (Leah Brady), who is still young enough to believe in Santa. The two bond as the night goes on, leading the film to find a gushy heart instead of going all the way with the initial jaded premise.
Even Bad Santa, with its alcohol and vomit-stained jadedness, still managed to find a delicate balance between obscenely crude and raw beating heart. Sadly, Violent Night opts for one over the other, with somewhat disappointing results. Leah Brady and David Harbour play well off one another, but it just never elevates to anything truly remarkable or noteworthy. It just feels like it’s going through the motions. It never dares to take any real risks with the material opting to play it incredibly safe all around. For a film that wants to have a razor sharp edge, it’s remarkably toothless.
From the offset, the film establishes the wealthy family as a bunch of kiss ass snobs. They could almost be cut from the same loins as the McTeague family of the 1994 comedy Greedy. They kiss the ass of the wealthy Matriarch (Beverly D’Angelo) in the hope that she will impart the family fortune to one of them. Now that sounds like a deviously fun setup for which a better screenplay could have had some fun with. But sadly, the screenplay does absolutely nothing with any of this giving everyone nothing to do but to sit around and wait as Santa kills the bad guys.
John Leguizamo has fun hamming it up as the leader of the mercenaries. But he, too, isn’t given anything major to work with other than sneering it up to the max. It just further drives home that the major problem with this film is the blandness of the screenplay itself. It merely provides lip service instead of ever daring to take a real risk.
But it’s not all bad though. As the title suggests, Violent Night does indeed deliver plenty of violence. If there is one thing the film does well, it’s the violence. Coming from Dead Snow, Director Tommy Wirkola has plenty of experience with setting up physical gags using gore to full comedic effect.
There are some inspired gags in this film that made me wince. At one point, the film goes full Home Alone as Trudy sets up a couple of booby traps of her own. But unlike Home Alone, we see the full effect of what happens when a nail pierces the skin. There is no denying the effectiveness of the physical gags in the film and Tommy Wirkola does very well staging some impressive sight gags.
With a better screenplay, Violent Night may have truly elevated into a jaded Christmas classic. The elements are all there for something better as a whole, but the film never manages to bring it all home. I applaud the attempt and while there are things I like about the film, namely David Harbour and John Leguizimo, unfortunately, I never got the feeling that I would ever want to revisit this on an annual basis.
To me, the mark of an enduring Christmas classic is its replay value. They’re the ones you want to revisit every year again and again during the festive season. Sadly, Violent Night is just entirely middle of the road. It could have and should have been more but is let down by an all too formulaic screenplay that lacks the razor sharp edge it desperately needed to really drive it home.
- Daniel M
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