Movie review: Santa Claus as action hero in 'Violent Night'

Fred Hawson

<p>The multi-millionaire Lightstone family were having a family Christmas reunion at the highly-secured mansion of their matriarch Gertrude (Beverly D&#x27;Angelo). In attendance that night were her eldest son Jason (Alex Hassell), his estranged wife Linda (Alexis Louder) and their cute daughter Trudy (Leah Brady). Also there was Jason&#x27;s sister Alva (Edi Patterson), her bratty son Bertrude (Alexander Elliot) and her actor boyfriend Morgan (Cam Gigandet). </p><p>That night, the Lightstone estate was intruded upon by a gang of thieves led by &quot;Mr. Scrooge&quot; (John Leguizamo). His minions who all sported Christmas-themed codenames, like Krampus (Brendan Fletcher), &quot;Gingerbread&quot; (Andrei Eriksen) and &quot;Candy Cane&quot; (Mitra Suri). However, what everyone did not know was that Santa Claus (David Harbour) was also in the house that moment. When the hostage situation got crazier and more violent, so did Santa. </p><figure class="op-interactive"><iframe height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/a53e4HHnx_s?enablejsapi=1" width="560"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more News on <a href="https://www.iwanttfc.com/#!/browse/Genres/News/tag_id_genres/id_news" target="_blank">iWantTFC</a></div><p>The title and poster already suggests a &quot;Die Hard&quot;-style action film which just so happened to transpire on Christmas Eve. When we meet sweet little Trudy talking about her favorite film &quot;Home Alone,&quot; we somehow already expected some of those booby-trap action to happen somewhere along the way. However, the secret magic sauce of this movie was the presence of Santa Claus himself, apparently the real one, right in the hilarious opening sequence.</p><p>Wow, the violence level here was Rated R-level in gruesomeness and gore. Those various killing styles we witnessed were at the level of the craziest slasher films. Nameless goons were being stabbed, slashed, impaled, bludgeoned, or cut in any and all parts of the body, making the screen a veritable bloodbath. The very Christmassy setting and seeing Santa Claus himself doing the Bruce Willis&#x27; hero-routine was darkly and ironically entertaining.</p><p>As Santa Claus here, David Harbour really captures that beloved brute character very well, like Jim Hopper in &quot;Stranger Things&quot; or the Red Guardian in &quot;Black Widow.&quot; Trudy was very captivating with her niceness (painful pranks notwithstanding), such that her emotional scenes tugged at our heartstrings. The way the writers weaved in the Christmas spirit into all the flawed characters was quite cleverly done, especially in the case of Scrooge. </p><p>This review was originally published in the author&#x27;s blog, &quot;<a href="https://said-fred.blogspot.com/2022/12/review-of-violent-night-christmas-claus.html">Fred Said</a>.&quot;</p>

The very Christmassy setting and seeing Santa Claus himself doing the Bruce Willis' hero-routine was darkly and ironically entertaining.

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Movie review: Santa Claus as action hero in 'Violent Night'

Movie review: Santa Claus as action hero in 'Violent Night'

Fred Hawson

Published Dec 11, 2022 07:48 AM PHT

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movie review

Santa Claus

Violent Night

David Harbour

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