Movie Review: Bad Santa 2

You better watch out. Billy Bob’s deplorable Bad Santa returns for a sequel as ragged (and urine-soaked) as his suit.

Handing the reins of the Bad Santa series to the creator of Entourage is like giving, oh, say, some wildly irresponsible dude the keys to the White House: it’s just not funny.

Entourage’s Doug Ellin only holds a producer’s credit on Bad Santa 2, though he was initially hired to write and direct. However, his fingerprints remain smudged across this thing, to the point where actual director Mark Waters and screenwriters Johnny Rosenthal and Shauna Cross might be sorry to have received the final credit. (Then again, it’s almost Christmas: Let’s share the blame.)

Gone is the original’s satirical, subversive punch. What we’re left with is politically incorrect button-pushing without meaning; a picture where women, little people, minorities and the intellectually disabled are tools, obstacles and inconveniences for a repulsively grumpy old man.

Billy Bob Thornton’s criminal Santa impersonator Willie T. Stokes is, bafflingly, admired and lusted over by the targets of his vilifying barbs. Once upon a time, we at least felt sorry for Willie. In the wake of an American election where actual discrimination disguised itself as ‘straight-talking’ and was rewarded with the Presidency, it’s hard to sympathise with Willie and his ilk for being disenfranchised.

He’s so franchised, he’s got a second movie under his belt.

At the start of this second flick, Willie is out of work and looking for ways to kill himself. His suicide attempt is interrupted by Thurman (Brett Kelly), the young kid who misguidedly hitched his wagon to Willie’s dying star in the original. Now 21 and still devoted to Willie, Thurman convinces him to meet with Marcus (Tony Cox), the back-stabbing ‘elf’ who once left Willie for dead. Turns out Marcus has a new heist in mind, involving a Chicago charity run by Christina Hendricks’ sex addict Diane. The booty? Two million dollars… and if Willie has his way, some booty.

Only once he signs on does Willie discover that his estranged, somehow grosser mother Sunny (Kathy Bates) is the ring-leader of this operation. He greets her with a punch to the face. By the way, Bates, at 68, is seven years older than Thornton. What, was Jennifer Lawrence unavailable?

To be entirely candid, I’ll admit Bad Santa 2 inspired a handful of shameful giggles – mostly from Willie’s sweetly naïve ward Thurman Merman – but more often, it led to silence. Not even Hendricks or Bates, both far too good for this but enthusiastic participants nonetheless, could make it a cheerful experience.

What becomes apparent in Bad Santa 2 is the genius of Terry Zwigoff, the first feature’s director. Bad Santa wouldn’t make his top five movies (note: he’s made four) yet he brought some humanity to its uniquely grotesque characters. Working with cartoonist Daniel Clowes was likely decent training. Instead of seeking to do something similar, Waters, Ellin and the screenwriters justify Willie’s awfulness by making everyone else slightly more awful. That’s one way to de-complicate your characters.

The original’s authors, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, would go on to write the sappy Crazy, Stupid, Love and the sappier TV show This Is Us. Joel and Ethan Coen, experts at indicting audiences in their characters’ morally bankrupt actions, polished the script. What attracted these pairs to such a base, high concept project as Bad Santa? Perhaps they were seeking a leave from decency – or their senses. It’s hard to know their motives, but not so hard to see why they would want nothing to do with its follow-up: this time around, it’s indecency without interrogation.

Billy Bob returned. Why? Why not? Willie T. Stokes is hardly a high-energy character; even during sex, he’s barely cognisant of what’s going on. In the first film, you wanted to applaud Thornton for following the character to his repugnant depths – and magically finding some heart. Here, a film happens to Willie and Thornton's present for it; nothing more. Entourage similarly coupled the celebration of jerks with narrative inertia. That's the Doug Ellin guarantee.

If it's any consolation, Bad Santa 2 doesn't hurt the ‘Billy Bob Thornton’ image, though that’s faint praise indeed.

2.5/5

In cinemas November 24. CTC.

Photo: Madman.