Bad Santa is 20 years old this year, and I think it deserves a place among the best Christmas movies ever.
It’s vile, crass, and an absolutely demented movie; it makes no compromises and violates every rule of a jolly Hallmark movie.
It’s also the perfect vehicle for Billy Bob Thornton, who plays Willie, a boozing, chain-smoking, womanizing misanthrope.
Every year, Willie gets a job as a department store Santa along with his elf-for-hire partner, played by Tony Cox, and the two steal their way through the holiday season.
The problem is Willie is a foul-mouthed Grinch who doesn’t take his job seriously and makes little effort to display any holiday spirit. He’s not like Buddy the Elf, whose every interaction is boiling with excitement. Instead, Willie drinks, smokes, and curses without apology—often in front of children.
And he fornicates in the big and tall women’s dressing room.
He’s borderline feral with no redeeming qualities. Yet, he takes a bullied and gullible kid under his wing.
It’s under this twisted moral framework that makes Bad Santa work so well. Among the 150 plus f-bombs, there’s a sentimentality that emerges beneath the pile of cigarette butts and empty beer cans.
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