This movie is miserable! It's ugly, it's undignified, it's twisted and demented, it's uncouth...... And, oh yeah, it's funny and I like it!
Every single character in "Bad Santa" is damaged goods. Throughout their lives, they've all had to cope with a severe shortage of love and care. Granted, it was mostly brought on by circumstances beyond their control but has nevertheless influenced their respective modi operandi noticeably - and mostly for the worse.
Willie T. Soke or simply Santa (Billy Bob Thornton) is bitter alcoholic wreck of a human being with, among other things, two passions that he often combines - those for husky ladies and anal sex. Throughout most of the year he crashes and burns around good ol' US of A eating (and drinking) into the money he made/stole the previous Christmas while anxiously waiting for the next one to roll around since he's usually dead broke by June.
He and his partner Marcus (Tony Cox) who happens to be a handicapped black midget have an annual ritual of getting jobs as mall Santa and his helper Elf, which allow them to scope the place out and rob it blind after closing time on Christmas Eve.
It's an uneasy 8-year relationship based solely on mutual financial interest, but more serious cracks are showing every new Christmas. By the time they reconvene in Phoenix for yet another holiday score, Willie is at his alcoholic, lecherous, unprofessional worst - showing up drunk for work almost every day, having quickie sex in the plus size department, etc, etc...
Despite his abhorrent veneer, he is befriended by not one, but two local oddballs whose names he doesn't even care to ask, simply referring to them as the Girl and the Kid.
The Kid (later we find out his name is bully-friendly Thurman Merman) is lonely, wide-eyed leech capable of creeping you out of your shoes one moment and melting your heart with his sweetness the next. He sees Santa as the ideal of everything good in the world. That this Santa is a foulmouthed, grizzled, unkempt drunk is of not much concern to him. I guess Willie will do just fine when you're a bullied adolescent being raised by your comatose grandmother.
The girl on the other hand is little less of a weirdo. She 'only' has a Santa sexual fetish dating back to her childhood and makes Willie wear his Santa outfit when they make love - although, they both use a different term to describe this activity.
The whole lot fits nicely in this world created by Terry Zwigoff who specializes in characters on the margins of society ("Crumb", "Ghost World"). Also memorable are Bernie Mac as oily mall security chief, late John Ritter as mall manager and Lauren Tom as Marcus' greedy girlfriend Lois.
Watching this film doesn't make you feel good about the state of humanity but IT IS funny, and since that's really the only thing they were going for - mission accomplished. Besides, you'd have to be very deprived to take any of this seriously.
Every single character in "Bad Santa" is damaged goods. Throughout their lives, they've all had to cope with a severe shortage of love and care. Granted, it was mostly brought on by circumstances beyond their control but has nevertheless influenced their respective modi operandi noticeably - and mostly for the worse.
Willie T. Soke or simply Santa (Billy Bob Thornton) is bitter alcoholic wreck of a human being with, among other things, two passions that he often combines - those for husky ladies and anal sex. Throughout most of the year he crashes and burns around good ol' US of A eating (and drinking) into the money he made/stole the previous Christmas while anxiously waiting for the next one to roll around since he's usually dead broke by June.
He and his partner Marcus (Tony Cox) who happens to be a handicapped black midget have an annual ritual of getting jobs as mall Santa and his helper Elf, which allow them to scope the place out and rob it blind after closing time on Christmas Eve.
It's an uneasy 8-year relationship based solely on mutual financial interest, but more serious cracks are showing every new Christmas. By the time they reconvene in Phoenix for yet another holiday score, Willie is at his alcoholic, lecherous, unprofessional worst - showing up drunk for work almost every day, having quickie sex in the plus size department, etc, etc...
Despite his abhorrent veneer, he is befriended by not one, but two local oddballs whose names he doesn't even care to ask, simply referring to them as the Girl and the Kid.
The Kid (later we find out his name is bully-friendly Thurman Merman) is lonely, wide-eyed leech capable of creeping you out of your shoes one moment and melting your heart with his sweetness the next. He sees Santa as the ideal of everything good in the world. That this Santa is a foulmouthed, grizzled, unkempt drunk is of not much concern to him. I guess Willie will do just fine when you're a bullied adolescent being raised by your comatose grandmother.
The girl on the other hand is little less of a weirdo. She 'only' has a Santa sexual fetish dating back to her childhood and makes Willie wear his Santa outfit when they make love - although, they both use a different term to describe this activity.
The whole lot fits nicely in this world created by Terry Zwigoff who specializes in characters on the margins of society ("Crumb", "Ghost World"). Also memorable are Bernie Mac as oily mall security chief, late John Ritter as mall manager and Lauren Tom as Marcus' greedy girlfriend Lois.
Watching this film doesn't make you feel good about the state of humanity but IT IS funny, and since that's really the only thing they were going for - mission accomplished. Besides, you'd have to be very deprived to take any of this seriously.