Review: Violent Night

‘Violent Night’ combines the best parts of the darkest Christmas movies into a fun and fowl hodgepodge of bloody violence and future Christmas memes.

While it’s not a perfect flick, you should enjoy callbacks to ‘Die Hard’, ‘The Ref’, and a few others.  You’ll also see ‘Stranger Thing’s’ Sheriff channel a homicidal Santa Claus and kill a bunch of terrorists.

The Plot – Violent Night

Die Hard — YES, ‘Die Hard’ IS a Christmas movie, not just a movie set at Christmas.– features a man from the New York area trying to save his marriage with his estranged wife at a super rich Christmas party when everyone gets taken hostage.

The Ref features an unlikely outsider unwittingly playing therapist to a wealthy, dysfunctional family with an overbearing matriarch during a heist at Christmas time.  Several other cinematic parallels, or ‘homages’ pop up in Violent NIght that feel VERY familiar to other, darker Christmas movies, as well.

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David Harbour as Santa

David Harbour is our Santa Claus.  We meet an alcoholic Santa sitting at a bar on Christmas Eve, three sheets to the wind.

Our Santa clearly burned himself out on Christmas Spirit many years ago, and now feels jaded to humanity as a whole.  Drowning his sorrows with other lonely Santas, our Santa seems particularly disturbed.

After a quick pep talk, Santa mans up and hits the road to deliver his presents.  But, after heading out the wrong door, the bartender gives chase to get Santa down off the roof.

It’s then when she looks up into the air in surprise.  She sees eight reindeer pulling a sleigh with the same drunk Santa holding the reins in mid-flight.

Just as awe starts to wash over her, something ELSE washes over her; but this is not nearly as pleasant.  It’s ‘Santa Puke’, or airborne vomit from an alcoholic flyby.

So gross!

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The Litestone Family

Jason Litestone’s a man on the edge.  Jason, played by Alex Hassell, screwed up his marriage to Linda and damaged his relationship with his daughter, Trudy.

Linda, played by Alexis Louder, picks up Jason on the way to the Litestone family home for a Christmas party.  Tension fills the car as even Trudy, played by Leah Brady, seems disappointed in her Dad.

Once we see the Litestone mansion, and all of the support staff scrambling around preparing for the party; we meet Jason’s equally miserable sister Alva, and their domineering mother, Gertrude.

Gertrude, played by ‘Vacation’ star Beverly D’Angelo, lords the family’s purse strings over her children. And Alva, played by Edi Patterson, jockeys for position to suck up to her own mother.

They may be One Percenters, but they have the same problems everybody faces with their family.  The Litestones just hide it behind designer clothing and lots of money.

The Heist

Where money goes, so do people trying to separate money from those who have it.

Our thieves, led by a guy with the codename ‘Scrooge’, quickly overwhelm the family by force.  Scrooge, played by John Leguizamo, has it all planned out. And, he’s got the intelligence to adapt and the will to carry it out.

Scrooge’s team all get equally festive nicknames, like ‘Krampus’, ‘Sugar Plum’, and ‘Jingle’; and set about their pre-planned jobs.  Some guard the family, and some focus on the heist.  All aren’t afraid to pull the trigger, figuratively and literally, on what needs to be done to get the money they need to change their lives forever.

And then came Santa…  ‘Time for some ‘Season’s Beatings’!’

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The Good – Violent Night

David Harbour

Santa’s not an easy character to bring to life, even for a talented character actor like David Harbour.  But, Harbour brings a new take on the character that totally works with the existing fairy tale of Santa, and yet somehow explains how Santa Claus can execute a bunch of terrorists.

This is not an easy task!

Harbour also creates a Santa that isn’t so ‘Inside The Actor’s Studio’ that you roll your eyes everytime he comes on the screen. AND, he delivers Arnold Schwarzenegger style action movie lines that don’t feel like a parody.  His Santa straddles all of the preconceived notions of Santa the mythical character, and a flesh and blood man capable of kicking major bad guy tuchus.

Also, not an easy task.

Moreover, his Santa brings a ton of fun killing the bad guys. And, he re-discovers the Christmas spirit of this Christmas movie.  The success or failure of this movie rides on his shoulders. Yet, he doesn’t Bogart the scenes or the story.

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The Frankensteining Of Other Christmas Movies

Violent Night pulls very obviously from other Christmas movies in some very obvious ways.  But, the way it pulls from Die Hard, The Ref, and even Home Alone’; feels natural and like a true homage, rather than a simple copy/paste money grab.

Combining an all time great action movie like Die Hard; with an Rated-R sarcastic Denis Leary star vehicle, like The Ref; and an all time Family classic, like Home Alone; feels like a recipe for disaster.  But, Director Tommy Wirola and Writers Pat Casey and Josh Miller assemble these seemingly different parts into a whole new monster — and that monster is named ‘Santa’.

We get the Dad fighting for his family and the execution of terrorists like in Die Hard; but the executioner isn’t the Dad.  We get a dysfunctional wealthy family getting counseling from an unlikely source like in The Ref, but the source isn’t the thief.

Even the kills of the bad guys feel influenced by John Wick and Final Destination; but don’t feel like ripoffs or carbon copies of something we’ve seen before.  Instead, we get a fun, foulmouthed ride with Santa Claus as the action movie star.

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The Bad – Violent Night

The Editing And The Cinematography

Violent Night comes in at 101 minutes, which is probably 10-15 minutes too long.

I, more than most, prefer longer movies with in depth stories; and enjoy watching three or four hour Director’s Cuts of movies I’ve already seen.  I’m THAT guy.  Which is why ME saying that Violent Night would’ve been better with a tighter run time, and some of the character/story elements in the first act edited out; is saying something.

But, much of the character setup in the first act drags, feels redundant, and doesn’t quite feel fully formed.  I label this as the Editing, but it also feels like the script itself could’ve used an extra polish before filming began.

The script and the ensuing editing feel JUST off from what should’ve been a finely tuned finished product, and I wish they would’ve spent a few more weeks refining the script and story to be airtight.  Ultimately, I feel this manifests as an Editing issue with a slightly too long run time, and taking too long to get to the meat of the story; but they are related.

Also feeling slightly off is The Cinematography and Production Design.  Again, the two work hand in hand, with a well conceived idea feeling coming out of the oven slightly under-cooked.

The camera angles and lighting don’t feel fully storyboarded and realized — as if they just started filming, and tried to find the visual language of the film while shooting the film and could just ‘fix it in post’.

The same goes for the Production design of a wealthy family’s mansion and Christmas party.  All of the elements are there, but everything feels a little thrown together.  Even the mansion itself feels a bit off from what the movie is trying to do, and who the Litestone family is on film.

Google claims the budget for Violent Night is only $20 Million, which isn’t a big budget at all.  But, that’s more than enough money, if properly spent, to tell this story and look great on the big screen.  Like many other things about Violent Night, everything feels just off from being a holiday classic, and it FEELS like that is a result of half-baked planning and vision.

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The Review – Violent Night

The high concept of a homicidal Santa Claus executing terrorists to save Christmas sells me on this film from the get go.

The idea of an alcoholic Santa Claus, jaded from centuries of delivering presents to generations of children and not making a difference in their lives, and humanity as a whole is an interesting concept.

And, the idea of this story of this particular Santa Claus being all about the Christmas spirit, somehow all makes sense; even if all the individual parts don’t seem like they should go together.

Some of the Casting decisions feel made for budgetary reasons.  Alex Hassell, Edi Patterson, and Cam Gigandet in particular feel cast more for their headshots than their acting talent.  This is not to say they ruin the movie, but they do feel slightly out of their depth when seen next to bigger name actors like John Leguizamo, Beverly D’Angelo, and David Harbour.

All in all Violent Night is a filthy, bloody Comedy/Action/Horror film that is absolutely worth watching in theaters to fully absorb the fun kill scenes and energy of the audience.  But, this film falls just short of being an all time Christmas classic.

Think: Fred Claus and Four Christmases level of holiday movie, not Die Hard or A Christmas Story.  Fun and worth a watch. But, not the kind of movie that will be on high rotation on cable TV every Christmas season.

Enough chinks in the armor bring the movie down some. But, the vision of David Harbour delivering cheesy action movie kill lines is a can’t miss!

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