Bad(der) Santa
Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2004 9:53 pm
A safe cracker and dwarf have a really cool gig going once per year where they rob a department store on Christmas. That is not what makes the alcoholic safe cracking Santa bad as much as the fact that he really needs therapy and for many years as his dwarf buddy tells him in one scene.
This was a good caper movie and character study in many ways. If looked at from that angle worthy. Yet for me and my wife, in the end, all we could think is why watch it? It is inhumane, demeaning and mean spirited since the story is driven by the depressed, wretched and abusive safe cracker (Thornton).
The title name plus promotion as a comedy in the end seems to be what steered it off course for me foiling expectation. The humor is based on how nasty Thorntons character is to others saying things we may think often times without saying them. The humor is driven by the tongue in cheek reality of the situations rather than being the focal point of the story. There are many movies with that kind of humor intertwined within and they are not passed off as comedies. If I would have gone into this thinking along the lines of a crime caper such as Oceans 11, The Italian Job, Match Stick Men and such I would have felt like "good movie" at the end instead of expecting something redeeming, some sort of wisdom or different perception to contemplate.
With the above understanding I seem to have talked myself into saying highly recommended.
This was a good caper movie and character study in many ways. If looked at from that angle worthy. Yet for me and my wife, in the end, all we could think is why watch it? It is inhumane, demeaning and mean spirited since the story is driven by the depressed, wretched and abusive safe cracker (Thornton).
The title name plus promotion as a comedy in the end seems to be what steered it off course for me foiling expectation. The humor is based on how nasty Thorntons character is to others saying things we may think often times without saying them. The humor is driven by the tongue in cheek reality of the situations rather than being the focal point of the story. There are many movies with that kind of humor intertwined within and they are not passed off as comedies. If I would have gone into this thinking along the lines of a crime caper such as Oceans 11, The Italian Job, Match Stick Men and such I would have felt like "good movie" at the end instead of expecting something redeeming, some sort of wisdom or different perception to contemplate.
With the above understanding I seem to have talked myself into saying highly recommended.