Bad Santa

Telling people about comedies is always problematic. Humour is the very height of subjectivity and is, by some margin the most important metric in determining and discussing their quality, which presents us with something of a quandary. With this firmly in mind, however, Bad Santa is very funny and if you don't think so you are wrong.

Perhaps a little too eager to be tasteless, I found a few of it's jokes falling flat but on the whole they wring a spectacular amount from the wonderfully malevolent character Billy Bob was seemingly born to play. Hapless, hopeless and constantly drunk, he such an excellent character it's almost a shame there isn't more. I was also impressed by the little fat kid, while not a good deal is demanded of him he only once breaks his mask of blissful ignorance and serves as a perfect foil. Almost the ultimate in straight men.

It was inevitably going to be some variation on the Grinch story, but manages to pull it off with little of the usual compromise. He learns just enough to redeem himself whilst still remaining the same glorious wretched bastard. It manages to be sweet without ever actually being saccharine and also at the same time as being massively crass. Quite the feat.

It's packed with smart language, but a dab hand at the visual gags too. At one point he managed to draw an out loud laugh simply by putting on a hat. It rivals Scrooged as my favourite Christmas themed movie, which I think you'll agree is heavy praise.