FilmBlather.com

"I beat the shit out of some kids today. But it was for a purpose."

Comedy doesn't come any blacker than Terry Zwigoff's Bad Santa, which is an accomplishment in itself, I suppose. But what sets it apart -- indeed, the reason this is one of the best films of the year -- is the way the script lets its characters retain their dignity, and the way it maintains a level of emotional coherence despite being maybe the meanest thing ever written. Some absurd and hilarious things happen to these people along the way, but at the end it doesn't feel like they've just gone through the motions for our entertainment. The characters matter more than the audience's reaction to them.

I'll give you an idea of Bad Santa's anarchic brutality. The protagonist, a career thief, plans to retire soon, wistfully telling of his plans to move to Florida, quit drinking, and own a bar on the beach. Cut to a bar on the beach, with our hero placidly pouring drinks behind it. Suddenly, a voice: "Hey asshole! Get out from behind my bar!" A fight scene ensues.

That's something one might expect from the Coen Brothers and, not coincidentally, they get a story credit on the film. I'm not sure how much of their tangible contributions remain in the finished version, but their spirit, as exhibited most recently in Intolerable Cruelty, is intact. This is like an un-Christmas movie, turning every heartwarming convention of the season on its head. It might be a tough sell for the holidays, but sometimes people surprise you.

It's funny how Billy Bob Thornton always seems typecast until you realize that he almost never plays similar characters. He makes every decision to cast him a wise one. Here he plays Willie, a mean, miserable sonofabitch who has nonetheless perfected an ingenious scheme for robbing department stores -- he and his drawf friend Marcus (Tony Cox) hire themselves out as Santa Claus and elf, proceeding to crack the store's safe and make out with the money and loads of merchandise. Of course, they can only do this one month out of the year, which makes it doubly important for them to get it right.

This year, there are a number of complications. Willie has become even more of a boorish sloth, freaking out the department store manager (the late, great John Ritter) and tipping off the chief of security (Bernie Mac), who then approaches them and demands a cut. Marcus is becoming fed up with his partner's horrid habits and unreliability, warning that an elf can always find another Santa, but a Santa might have trouble finding an elf. Meanwhile, Willie has taken up residence in the house of an insecure, overweight young kid (Brett Kelly) whose mother is long gone, father is in jail, and grandma (Cloris Leachman) is pretty much catatonic.

I mentioned Intolerable Cruelty earlier, and the the films are comparable in the way they both persistently desecrate our country's most sacred institutions -- Cruelty takes aim at marriage while Bad Santa bombards Christmas. And the title of the Coen film is maybe even more applicable to this one, as the most common reaction to many of the scenes is slack-jawed amazement of the "I can't believe they did that" kind. Adorable little children are cursed off and thrown from Santa's lap, Willie convinces a kid that he is Santa, kicked out of the North Pole for sleeping with Mrs. Claus' sister, and Bernie Mac gives a (white) boy a lecture on shoplifting before taking his mp3 player and kicking him out of the store with a final yell of "Happy Kwanzaa!"

But while shock value is responsible for some of the comic effect, the movie is so much more than a cringe-fest that only tries to repulse you into thinking it's funny (think Very Bad Things). The script is imbued with a wicked wit, supplemented by a set of tremendous performances -- from Thornton, yes, but also from Bernie Mac, Tony Cox (Me, Myself & Irene), and John Ritter, whose presence serves as a poignant reminder of our loss. Moreover, the characters make sense, and their relationships -- in particular the one between Willie and the Kid, unfortunately named Thurman Murman -- are genuine, sometimes sweet, often sad. The question, of course, is whether the Thornton character will earn or otherwise obtain redemption, and the shocking thing is that we care about the answer.

But have I mentioned it's funny? It's really very funny. Terry Zwigoff is also responsible for Ghost World, a justly acclaimed dark comedy from 2000. That film was less caustic (though not by much) and maybe easier to take seriously, but dammit, Bad Santa is just as deeply and weirdly touching. This is a filmmaker I want to follow.