Verdict
Summary
An easy sell for me on the surface, and what should have been a sure thing when it manifested, the hard “R”-rated Violent Night is a pretty vile piece of product, despite having what seemed like the right ingredients in its mixture. A riff on Die Hard 2, Krampus, and Bad Santa, but with a sloppy script, in-your-face excesses (nonstop profanity, overly gory violence, and despicable characters), and oddly poor lighting and action choreography despite having been made by the producers of John Wick, the film is a complete failure and bears the mark of bad direction by Tommy Wirkola
Plot:
The real Santa Claus gets waylaid in a mansion full of terrorists on Christmas Eve.
Review:
A weary and exhausted (and very jaded) Viking Santa Claus (David Harbour, well cast) is losing faith in humanity on his latest Christmas Eve run to deliver presents to the children of the world. He ends up at a mansion owned by an obscenely wealthy matriarch (played by Beverly D’Angelo) who despises her children and kin (who all have an angle on how to inherit her fortune), but Santa gets way more than cookies and milk as part of the bargain for dropping a few presents off. A whole squad of cutthroat terrorists have infiltrated the well fortified compound and divide their numbers around the mansion: Some stay and keep the family hostage, while others walk the perimeter or get to work on a huge vault said to house tens of millions of dollars. Their leader is a Christmas-hating Grinch (played by John Leguizamo, a distracting casting choice) who is stunned when his men get picked off one by one by an unidentified interloper in the mansion … Santa Claus! With just the right amount of magical Christmas spirit left in him, Santa turns out to be a formidable assassin himself (remember, he used to be a Viking warrior), and he’ll do everything he can to protect and save the little girl in the house who still believes in him, which means he’ll have to spice up the eggnog and get his sledgehammer swinging because it’s going to be a bloody Christmas!
An easy sell for me on the surface, and what should have been a sure thing when it manifested, the hard “R”-rated Violent Night is a pretty vile piece of product, despite having what seemed like the right ingredients in its mixture. A riff on Die Hard 2, Krampus, and Bad Santa, but with a sloppy script, in-your-face excesses (nonstop profanity, overly gory violence, and despicable characters), and oddly poor lighting and action choreography despite having been made by the producers of John Wick, the film is a complete failure and bears the mark of bad direction by Tommy Wirkola, who still hasn’t made a decent film. His Dead Snow movies were terrible, his movie Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters was very disappointing, and his last one What Happened to Monday was a big disappointment as well. Whatever he’s doing as a director isn’t working, and while he may have seemed like the right choice here, I’d prefer someone with real caliber like Renny Harlin for my hardcore action films with a hint of comedy.
Instead of waiting until the next holiday season to release Violent Night on home video, Universal has opted to go ahead with its January release (about a month and a half after its theatrical debut) for the Blu-ray / DVD / Digital Code combo pack. Included on the disc are deleted and extended scenes, a behind the scenes featurette gallery, a fight choreography feature, and a feature commentary with the director, the producer, and the writer.
