Bad Santa
Review by Shelley Cameron for Reel Movie Critic
HH ½
Cast
Billy Bob Thornton	Willie T. Soke
Tony Cox	Marcus
Bernie Mac	Gin Slagel
John Ritter	Mall Manager
Directed by Terry Zwigoff. Comedy. Rated R. 93 Minutes.

This Christmas movie for the cynical casts Billy Bob Thornton as half of a pair of crooks whose annual income derives from the big job they pull each December. If you can get past the overabundance of crude sex and snot jokes, and a continuous stream of four letter words, there are some kernels of humor to be gleaned, but certainly not for the kiddies. Willie T. Soke (Thornton) is a self-loathing, perpetually drunk and disorderly Santa. Marcus (Tony Cox), is his dwarf manager and chief elf. Marcus' elfin size is the edge that gets them the annual gigs at upscale malls over other Santa wannabes. In exchange for putting up with a few weeks of indignities delivered by the unappealing kids who come to visit Santa, Soke and Marcus reward themselves with holiday loot from the department store safe. Together with Marcus' material girlfriend, their Christmas preparations consist of casing the joint for the heist that will net them enough money to keep them in liquor for the rest of the year.

When Santa is drinking, which is most of the time, his chief preoccupation is skirt chasing. Any shred of humanity is quickly drowned in booze and angry outbursts. With the sort of spin one might expect from Terry Zwigoff, ("Ghost World"), there is a subtext of discontent with those aspects of American culture represented by the suburban mall. Even so, Zwigoff can't overcome the weak script that pounds repetitiously with bad jokes. John Ritter, in his last role, plays the spineless mall manager who hires, and then tries to expel, the odious pair.

In this milieu of prosperity lives The Kid. With his father away on an "extended stay," this not-so-small child is left in the care of Gran (Cloris Leachman, her talents wasted; a dummy could have played the part). Santa takes up residence in their comfortable home and behaves badly until the final sequence, where he behaves badly but sprouts a kernel of redemption. Pop Christmas tunes come annoyingly from the clock radio or mall speaker, and snippets from classics like Bizet's Carmen, try to move the tale along in its offbeat direction, but these gambits can't quite save it. Cox does a credible job as the sober brain of the duo. Bernie Mac, as a chain smoking mall security chief, does his best with what he's got to work with and Lauren Graham is window dressing. As one might surmise from the title, not your typical heartwarming Disney movie, and the repeated crude jokes are tiresome, but there is something about the way Thornton and Cox combine before the silly ending that one can almost forgive the rest. It's played for the kind of laughs that aren't funny, but upon reflection, some quiet, dark humor emerges.