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Bad Santa (2003)
Director:
Terry Zwigoff
Starring:
Billy Bob Thornton, Bernie Mac, Tony Cox
Studio:
Dimension Films
For showtimes, head to Fandango.
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In Terry Zwigoff’s hilarious "Bad Santa", Pottersville is a 21st Century shopping mall where potty-mouthed protagonist Willie (Billy Bob Thornton) likes to be served hard drinks so he can get drunk fast.
Willie, a prodigious safe cracker who annually (and reluctantly) poses as a department store Santa before cashing in on Christmas receipts, is also prone to vomiting in trash cans, passing out at random and having anal sex with Mrs. Clause-sized women in dressing rooms.
Along the way, Willie is befriended by an eight-year-old outcast who believes in this strange Santa. Guess who become friends in the end?
While a lesser film would highlight Willie's transformation from sordid drunk to surrogate daddy with predictable gags and contrived, morally uplifting nonsense, "Bad Santa" leaves something more original under the tree.
Zwigoff ("Crumb", "Ghost World") is a tremendously disciplined director sympathetic to social misanthropes who are repelled by the whims of a material society. Willie, while incorrigible, recognizes that if there is a Spirit of Christmas, it wouldn't be caught dead in a mall.
Also with Tony Cox, Bernie Mac and the late John Ritter.
...
Written by Brad Spirrison
Review Date: December 16, 2003
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