Violent Night – Review
101 minutes, Rated R
Written by Pat Casey and Josh Miller
Directed by Tommy Wirkola
**NOTE: this post will be updated with audio once we actually have the chance to talk about it. Until then, you can read Mark’s review below. Stay tuned.**
Synopsis:
When a team of mercenaries breaks into a wealthy family compound on Christmas Eve, taking everyone inside hostage, the team isn’t prepared for a surprise combatant: Santa Claus (David Harbour, Black Widow, Stranger Things series) is on the grounds, and he’s about to show why this Nick is no saint.
A Christmas movie written by 2 guys who apparently love horror and who also wrote the two Sonic the Hedgehog movies, directed by a guy who directed the Dead Snow films and Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, and starring Sheriff Hooper from Stranger Things?
On paper, this should be a slam-dunk, runaway success.
Turns out that on film, it’s a slam-dunk, runaway success.
You’re going to be reading and hearing a whole bunch of Christmas pun-type blurbs about Violent Night, so let me get my review in before everyone ruins it for you.
A cynical, worn-out Santa tries to make it through another year delivering video games and cash to an ungrateful planet. Contemplating retirement, he stops and one home which changes everything.
That home is, of course, the private estate of a powerful family who have just been taken hostage by criminals looking to steal some $300M in dark money hidden in the on-site vault.
Luckily, Santa is there. Unluckily for Santa, gunfire scares off the reindeer and he’s forced to deal with the situation, made more complicated by the little girl who BELIEVES in him, so he can’t leave here.
There’s a lot of action, a lot of cool touches for how Santa does what he does. There’s even a really impressive (and gruesome) callback to the original “Twas the Night Before Christmas” poem for all the traditionalists out there…
David Harbour plays a great Santa, embodying both the desire to do good and the idea that maybe he’s no longer needed or wanted by the world anymore.
Think of it as Santa’s midlife crisis, only instead of divorcing Mrs. Claus and buying a sports sleigh to feel young and vital again he simply needs to take care of a bunch of folks on the Naughty list.
And how can he do that? Well, he wasn’t always Santa…
Beverly D’Angelo is great as Gertrude Lightstone, the completely bitchy Matriarch of the family, and John Leguizamo leads the villainous crew with about as much Anti-Christmas cheer as can be mustered.
Young Leah Brady is terrific as Trudy (Gertrude’s granddaughter), who helps Santa reconnect with his work (and himself) while also channeling her inner Macaulay Culkin, having just watched Home Alone the previous night.
To wrap up, let’s do a nice, festive, Bullet list (completely apropos, BTW):
- Yes, it’s part Die Hard (from which franchise it borrows liberally), part Home Alone (in a short segment), with a dash of John Wick (close combat) and even a smidge of The Ref (family therapy, lol), if you want to go there.
- Harbour is great, completely redeeming that terrible Hellboy movie.
- If Hopper from Stranger Things turned into Santa, his exasperation with Eleven would translate perfectly to his exasperation with humanity as whole.
- Christmas Magic: not even Santa really understands how it works.
- Now I want Santa’s origin story. We get to see him BEFORE Santa, but not the transformation.
- Sadly, we don’t meet Mrs. Claus… but if they do a sequel and she’s NOT played by Winona Ryder, I’m going to consider that an opportunity 100% missed.
- This might actually be the best Christmas action movie since the original Die Hard…
- He may not be the Santa we deserve, but he’s the Santa we need right now.
- I literally smiled the entire time I was watching this.
This is Rated R for a reason, and that reason is some pretty gruesome deaths, so don’t be taking your little kids to this one thinking it’s just a fun Santa movie.
I mean, it IS a fun Santa movie…but it’s for older kids and adults, lol.
Violent Night opens in theaters December 2 and stars David Harbour, John Leguizamo, Cam Gigandet, Alex Hassell, Alexis louder, Edi Patterson, and Beverly D’Angelo.
And remember, if the BEST thing you can say about a movie is that it’s “visually stunning,” then they’ve done something wrong.
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