‘Violent Night’ Spoiler Review
Image Source: JoBlo
If you recall the movie Scrooged from 1988, there is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene where the title character, Frank Cross, a TV executive, screens a trailer for a fake movie called The Night The Reindeer Died. In this movie, terrorists attempt to overtake the North Pole, but with the help of Lee Majors, Santa uses violence and guns to stop them. The scene is a great piece of humour in an already funny movie, but people at the time shrugged it off as a parody and not something we would necessarily see in a Christmas movie. Flash forward to 2022, and we finally reach the point where parody has become a reality in Tommy Wirkola’s Violent Night.
Violent Night has a cold open, which takes place in a pub in London, England, on Christmas Eve. A disheveled man, played by David Harbour of Black Widow and Stranger Things fame, is dressed in a relatively modern-looking Santa outfit drinking away. Another man dressed as Santa comes along, and they get to talking, thinking Harbour’s Santa is a mall Santa. Harbour’s Santa has become despondent in today’s children because they are infatuated with money and video games and no longer believe in the magic of Christmas or in Santa himself. The opener ends with Harbour running to the roof to jump on his sleigh to resume delivering presents and immediately puking all over a bartender who followed him to ensure he wasn’t some crazy man. This heavy-drinking Santa and graphic puke scene set the tone for what is to come.
Image Source: SyFy
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Sliding over a couple time zones to the US, we meet Jason Lightstone, his estranged wife, and daughter Trudy as they are heading to Jason’s mother’s house, played in a twist of delightful casting by Beverly D’Angelo of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation who if I can be honest looked like Melanie Griffith. Gertrude Lightstone is the matriarch of a wealthy, successful family with lots of bodyguards, high-tech security, and apparently a massive vault of money. They are joined at the house by Alva Lightstone, Jason’s sister, her husband, action movie hero Morgan Steel and his nephew Bertrude Lightstone a self-proclaimed social media star.
There really isn’t much more set-up you need but broadcasted like a set of lights from Clark Griswold (Beverly D’Angelo gets this joke), there is a bunch of helpers all around this Christmas party that clearly don’t belong, and your hunch is correct. Just after Trudy is off to bed, John Leguizamo, nicknamed Scrooge, kills the main gate security guard and gives the signal for the shady hired help immediately turn on everyone and begin shooting the place up and rounding up the Lightstone’s to take as hostages. In this entire scene, Wirkola holds nothing back in the graphic department showing all the bullet holes and blood set against a soundtrack of Christmas music.
Image Source: Flipboard
David Harbour’s Santa arrives to deliver presents to Trudy and the rest of the family but hears all the noise caused by the hostage situation and, during a struggle with one of Scrooge’s henchmen, is now left stranded after the reindeer are spooked by the gunfire and split leaving Santa to fight the bad guys and try and rescue Trudy. Santa has a great fighting style and doesn’t appear too out of character, taking out bad guys with Christmas lights, shaved-down candy canes, and even the star at the top of the tree. This is a jarring move by the writers, but later in the movie, we are told that this version of Santa was actually a former Viking known for swinging a big hammer and killing many people. If you wondered if this exposition would come into play later in the movie, man does it ever when Santa gets ahold of a sledgehammer and proceeds to take down an entire task force of trained military men.
Ultimately the minutia of the plot is secondary as this is a visual movie. You watch to see Santa take down the kidnappers in unique and interesting ways. I can tell you that the money being sought, $300 million, seems like a small amount for 10-15 bad guys to split and basically kill people over, but needless to say, they never get to enjoy it as Santa gets his men and women. Santa is portrayed as a disillusioned drunk who has lost his Christmas spirit, but thanks to his time beating up bad guys and feeling the love of Christmas from Trudy and the previously cold Lightstone family, we see he is indeed back and renewed faith in the spirit of Christmas.
Image Source: Roger Ebert
This movie is filled with Christmas one-liners and puns with a lot of blood and gore. What I did find was the moments of genuine Christmas scenes and heart is what took me out of the movie, but then there was a graphic re-imagining and homage to Home Alone with the legit dangers of being hit in the head with a bowling ball or stepping on a nail, and I was brought back into what makes the movie great. If I was asked to watch this movie every year instead of Die Hard, which was honoured throughout, I would have to work hard to decide which to watch. If you want a movie with gratuitous violence, well-choreographed fight scenes, and Santa swinging a hammer through the head of trained mercenaries, then this movie is definitely for you.
Rating: 9/10
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Source(s): ViolentNight
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