Violent Night

By Joshua Xiang Short Review

It’s like attending a party where no two guests are on sufficiently good terms to manage even 20 minutes of civilized conversation. “Perfect for Christmas Day then,” I hear you say. Too cynical. (Rotten Tomatoes, Donald Clark)

The Movie is a bit unsuccessful in trying to stretch its one-joke premise out to 101 minutes in a tonally uneven attempt to position itself as a new alternative holiday classic. Some of the action scenes are pretty entertaining, but overall, the director of John Wick tries to make the film seem like Suicide Squad is pretty unrealistic.

"Violent Night" is primarily comprised of bits and pieces borrowed from other holiday films of recent vintage. Most obviously, it intends to be some kind of hybrid of the aforementioned "Die Hard" and "Home Alone." The drunken, foul-mouthed, and cynical version of Santa depicted here, who we see projectile vomiting on a hapless victim while flying off in his sleigh during the pre-credit opening sequence, will no doubt inspire memories of Billy Bob Thornton in "Bad Santa." The presence of D'Angelo (The bad guy in the movie) serves as a living reminder of "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation," though her part is a 180-degree turn from the warm and loving mother she played there. Hell, even the conceit of Santa fighting off bad guys in bloody fashion was done a couple of years ago in the weirdo project "Fatman," in which Mel Gibson's version of Santa fights off an assassin hired by a monstrously entitled brat who objected to receiving a lump of coal.