It’s Christmas Eve and Santa is not having a good night.
Review © 2022 by Flytrap
Violent Night
Written by: Pat Casey, Josh Miller
Directed by: Tommy Wirkola
Starring: David Harbour, Alex Hassell, Alexis Louder, Leah Brady, John Leguizamo, Beverly D’Angelo, Edi Patterson
Complete cast and crew are here
Rated R
Running time: 112 mins
When Santa goes down the chimney to deliver presents to a girl who’s been nice, he stumbles into a grand robbery and has to rescue the girl and keep himself alive.
This is now on my list as one of the greatest Christmas movies ever. Mostly unhindered by over-the-top special effects, it instead relies on a lot of well-choreographed action/fight scenes, which do get grim. Santa here is not a supernatural creature with powers (well, one), he is very mortal and vulnerable. Harbour brings a lot of empathy to the part, which helps counteract the somewhat standard “bad family”, which still manages to be well-played. I especially liked Leah Brady as the girl who still believes in Santa Claus.
And hey, if I can buy into a God of Thunder, a seventy-plus-year old super-soldier and an indestructible green giant for several movies, I can believe in Santa for one. I just with they had gone more into his history; there is a brief glimpse, but not enough for me.
I highly recommend this one, but be warned — it is very violent. But in a fun way, heheh. Teenagers will probably be OK with it, but smaller children might be put off by a Santa popping heads with a big hammer. There is a brief mid-credits scene, but nothing after that, so you can sleigh on out without anything to miss.
Flytrap rating: 8/10
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