Bad Santa (2003)

Billy Bob Thornton plays Willie Stokes, an alcoholic disgrace of a department store Santa Claus. Tony Cox plays his partner Marcus, a "little person" who is the elf to Willie's Santa. They are partners in a Christmas Eve scam which they pull off every year in a different state.

The movie begins on Christmas Eve in which Willie and Marcus pull off their yearly Christmas Eve robbery and part ways until the next holiday season. The next year they end up in Arizona where Willie meets a kid at the mall who lives with his Grandma (Cloris Leachman) and thinks that he is really Santa Claus. When Willie must leave his trashy apartment, he moves into this kids house (Grandma doesn't seem to notice), takes up residence, and uses the family car. Willie also acquires a bartender girlfriend played by Lauren Graham who seems to like the idea of having sex with Willie when he wears his Santa gear. Most of the film is devoted to Willie being a jerk and being disgusting. Once the robbery is committed, Marcus turns on Willie but they are caught by the police before Marcus can shoot him. In the end, Willie seems to have developed a small bit of conscience and becomes friends with the kid.

This movie is loaded with bad language, sexual situations and some violence. I have a pretty dry sense of humor and I often think that movies are funny that my friends can't stand to watch (I'm kind of juvenile that way), but I still think that this movie was crap. Critics overall gave this movie excellent reviews. I don't know if it is because I am getting older, or if it is because I am more of a traditional Christmas kind of person, but I just didn't like it. Sure it had a few places that were pretty funny, but I would not recommend this to anyone that is interested in seeing a traditional Christmas type movie. Teenage boys, frat boys and twenty somethings (even thirty or forty somethings) who think that peeing in a Santa suit, swearing at children and drunken, drooling Santa's are a good time will LOVE this movie. Not a movie for children.

90 Minutes. Rated R. I give this movie TWO STARS.