Violent Night movie review - Aussieboyreviews
HOW VIOLENT DOES SANTA GO IN VIOLENT NIGHT?
This extremely violent and excessively bloody Christmas comedy lives up to its name, but Santa’s committing violence for a good cause. Violent Night should be placed up there with Home Alone, Die Hard, The Santa Clause and Bad Santa.
Storyline
Santa Claus must save the day (and Christmas) when a group of mercenaries break into a home and hold the wealthy family hostage.
Movie Images
Movie details
Director: Tommy Wirkola
Cast: David Harbour, John Leguizamo, Alex Hassell, Leah Brady, Alexis Louder, Cam Gigandet, Edi Patterson, Beverly D’Angelo, Alexander Elliot
Writer: Pat Casey, Josh Miller
Release Date (Australia): 1 December 2022
Runtime: 112 minutes/1h 52m
Genre: Action, Comedy, Crime
Country: USA
Language: English
CONTENT GUIDE (warning: May contain spoilers)
The film features crime themes and sustained sense of threat as family is held hostage by a group of mercenaries. A character is depicted stitching up his own wound.
The film contains scenes that feature gory depictions of stabbings, shootings, impalement and people being attacked with a sledgehammer that are often accompanied by sprays of blood, graphic injury detail and large amounts of blood detail.
The film contains frequent use of the words “f**k” and “s**t”, as well as use of the words “c**ksucker”, “ass”, “bitch”, “d**k”, “damn” and “hell”.
A brief verbal reference is made to “junkies”.
None.
Crude verbal references are made to sex.
mpaa rating
R (for strong bloody violence, language throughout and some sexual references)
Aussie boy's thoughts
David Harbour as a heroic, butt-kicking Santa Clause is all we really needed for Christmas in an awesome holiday comedy. Violent Night deserves its place up there with all the other well-known Christmas classics that this movie borrows a few elements from each of. It includes gleaming references and clever boobytraps from Home Alone, a crime-hostage concept like in Die Hard, some of the dark fun from Better Watch Out, some confusion from The Santa Clause, as well as potty mouths and kid-unfriendly humour from Bad Santa.
One of the most fulfilling and freshest parts of the movie is, without discussing it all, the savagely brutal violence and insane gore. If you’re rooting for as much gore as entertainment, quality, characters and decent story, who needs John Wick when you’ve got Saint Nick in Violent Night. If you’ve seen some humour he’s been involved with in the past, like all his funny scenes and the jokes in Stranger Things, it doesn’t take a lot to notice that actor David Harbour is a gem, the one key for most of the fun in this thrilling Christmas action-comedy. He pulls off a really funny, yet cursing and violent Santa who’s extremely likeable and incredibly entertaining to watch. But he’s not the fake mall Santa like in Bad Santa; this is a sweet, dark movie for adults that still believes in Christmas magic.
You can find plenty of people online complaining about how the family in this movie is too quirky and obnoxious at times, which they certainly are and they especially are while being held at gunpoint, but that’s another really fun side of the film. When the audience isn’t with Harbour’s fantastic Santa character, we’re either with the serious-behaved mercenaries or having fun inside with the family. The only aspect that feels really uninspired is the fact that this movie is sort of all held together only by Santa being motivated to save the family because he’s been communicating via walkie-talkies with the little girl. She’s probably the least best character in the movie. But for a holiday movie, Violent Night is something you should definitely watch; don’t be afraid to spend your money on it and watch it with a bucket of buttery popcorn.
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