A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: Bad Santa

Date of original theatrical release: 2003

Details:

Billy Bob Thornton

Tony Cox

Brett Kelly

Lauren Graham

Bernie Mac

John Ritter

Cloris Leachman

Director: Terry Zwigoff

Score: -1/2

The Review: Not your typical feel-good Christmas movie -- neither typical, nor feel-good, and only vaguely holiday in spirit.

Twisted caper flick, morphed onto a holiday scaffold, where the serial criminals are a drunken sot and a grumpy black dwarf who play Santa (Thornton) and his elf (Cox) to scope out malls in preparation for their annual heist -- cadging enough to stay clean until next Christmas. This time, what mollifying influence there is comes from (1) a rather odd kid (Kelly) who's sort-of in the care of his not-quite-all-there grandma (Leachman), and (2) a local bartender (Graham) with a Santa Claus fetish. Of course, there's more to the back-story than this, but it's not worth spending electrons or bandwidth on it. Occasional twinks of humor, and the bartender is cute, but the total product is in no way redeeming and less than marginally interesting.

The DVD is called Badder Santa, implying a slightly longer, less-edited (for joy!) version.

(2-Dec-06)

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