Bad Santa 2

Bad Santa 2

I think it’s safe to say that “Bad Santa” (2003) acted as a bridge between the subversive comedies of John Waters and the slacker, faux-transgressive gross-out comedies of today. Long after the release of “Bad Santa,” we have its sequel, which provides evidence for my argument although it might not be intentional on their part.

Billy Bob Thornton stars in his career-best role as Willie Stokes (the character’s actual name, but nobody calls him that). It was an indie movie with a lot of spunk directed by Terry Zwigoff and executive produced by Joel and Ethan Coen that blended together elements from heist films with black comedies and some redemptive storytelling to make something almost humanistic. Cranky though it may be. While this film didn’t quite break $100 million at the domestic box office, it did slightly better than what you would call cult status.

The “Bad Santa” franchise is strong elsewhere though, which counts for things like casting choices: Thornton, Tony Cox and poor Brett Kelly (who played sad but highly unappealing snotnose kid Thurman Merman) are back while newcomers include Kathy Bates and Christina Hendricks among others. Octavia Spencer makes a cameo appearance as a hooker hired to divest now 21-year old Thurman of his “cherry.” Bob Dylan’s version of “Winter Wonderland” appears on the soundtrack here too: think about that Bob Dylan can’t even be bothered going over to Sweden to pick up his Nobel Prize but he’ll let them use one in this movie?

This sequel comes from director Mark Waters whose work on “Mean Girls” suggested he knows how funny things can be; however, his later films such as Mr. Popper’s Penguins seem more like someone who lost their mojo somewhere along the way so I’m not really sure what direction we should expect from him right off bat since it’s clear these areas where Zwigoff excelled aren’t exactly Waters’ forte either believable characterization being one example among many others where else could we go? But given what type of movie this is at any given point in time then maybe all you need are some laughs anyway?

We see Willie again at the start of this movie; he’s deep into alcoholism-induced depression, flirting pretty hard with suicide when suddenly there’s an inconvenient visit from next door neighbor Thurman who brings tidings from Marcus played by Cox now that sounds fun!

As viewers will recall things didn’t end well between these two criminals partners last time around so needless to say Willie isn’t excited about hearing from his old associate much less being persuaded into visiting Chicago where according to Sunny Bates character Willie’s long estranged criminal mother plans a new job for three undercover thieves looking to rob popular children charity skimming most earnings off its top anyways except beautiful innocent recovering alcoholic wife played by Hendricks takes pity on Willie casing joint stops caring if they’re good people or not holding together fine.

You get the idea of how all these parts are supposed to fit together and then flop, right? Of course you do. Like many comedies of its kind these days, the story in “Bad Santa,” such as it is, exists solely as a straight line on which to hang a bunch of gags. This isn’t just true for modern day comedies: it also applies to quite a few Marx Brothers movies. But this always depends on execution, which in this case means that the jokes had better be good. It’s this difference that makes “Duck Soup” a classic and “Go West” not so much in the case of the Marxes.

For “Bad Santa,” its joke batting average is about. 400 and I’m being generous here. Even when they don’t land, Thornton’s curmudgeon mode is hard to resist. He can make something utterly unfunny like “Are you a complete f**king retard” dryly amusing, which I suppose is sort of the point. Similarly Bates and Cox clearly enjoy their interplay with Thornton enough that I was surprised there wasn’t a gag reel over the end credits; it certainly would have been preferable to what IS seen over those end credits, a gross-out gag inspired by a practice first alluded to in popular culture in a John Waters film as it happens (that movie would be Pecker).

However, particularly in its portrayal of Thurman who here isn’t so much misunderstood and unloved as he is dumber than dirt this sequel actively devalues the compassion on the knife edge of misanthropy that distinguished the original in favor of mainstream gross out cartoonism because apparently that’s what sells now.

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