MOVIE REVIEW
Naughty 'Bad Santa' smashes the holiday genre

By Jack Garner
Gannett News Service

BAD SANTA (R) Three Stars (Good)

They've made a Christmas movie just for you. It's called "Bad Santa," and seldom has a movie been more aptly named.

How subversive is it? Well, this Santa is a department store burglar played by Billy Bob Thornton. When he's not falling down drunk, he's letting fly with F-bombs and flopping into bed with hookers.

So hear me now: Do not, under any circumstances, take any youngster to see "Bad Santa." The title — and the R rating — are to be believed.

But enough with the warnings. "Bad Santa" is mighty funny, a raunchy romp for adults who enjoy a hint of perversion, especially if they're ready for the cotton-candy sweetness of Christmas to be spiked with 100-proof bourbon. It's got all the hip edginess you'd expect from a film directed by Terry Zwigoff (of "Ghost Story" and "Crumb"), and adapted from a one-line concept developed by Joel and Ethan Coen.

Thornton is Willie T. Soke, a ne'er-do-well who survives each year on the money he makes on Christmas Eve. On that night, he and his diminutive partner, Marcus (Tony Cox) rob the department store where they've been working as Santa and his elf over the previous month. The next year, it's on to a new town and a new department store.

Marcus has his hands full with Willie, who doesn't really get properly into the Santa thing. He's a lazy no-account who's too fond of the booze and the babes to behave himself.

This year, they're also having problems with a smarter-than-average department store manager (the late John Ritter) and his aggressive security chief (Bernie Mac).

And then, under circumstances too bizarre to be believed, the bad Santa befriends a pudgy and pitiful, misfit youngster (Brett Kelly) who lives with his nearly comatose grandmother (Cloris Leachman) and has no other adult supervision. A true Santa believer, the boy loves the red-suited fellow and is ready to forgive him his many faults, just to get a little attention from him.

So, yes, it's true, there's a hint of sweetness and redemption — but not nearly enough to ruin all the sordid silliness that leads up to it.

Thornton dives headlong into the wacky wickedness; he's frighteningly believable as the holiday lush and lackadaisical lay about. He makes no attempt to win our sympathy; yet, somehow, he does. More importantly he generates a ton of laughs.

Willie Soke may not be anyone's idea of a Santa Claus, but he comes bearing gifts, nonetheless.

Rated R, with strong language, sex, raunchiness.