The plot, can be summed up perfectly by the what was said in the pitch meeting, which I have it on good authority was this - "It's Die Hard 1 & 2 meets Miracle on 53rd St and Home Alone."
And that's it. In this, a gang of generic bad guys led by John Leguizamo invade the house of an insanely rich Matriarcal family, kill all the servants (quite horribly), and hold the family hostage, while the Christmas crimbos try to break in the family vault so that they can steal lots of money. Unluckily for them, Santa Claus (David Harbour) is trapped in the house with them and he's suffering from a series case of the Christmas blues. Luckily for him, there's a little girl who's there to rekindle his Christmas spirit, as he lays waste to an army of nameless goons in a brutal orgy of violence and blood letting, although because this is the 21st Century gouts of blood aren't allowed, although sledge hammers into knees, faces, skulls and groins are absolutely fine.
And that's the story. You happily play 'guess the dialogue' with this one, I scored an impressive 90 pts, by correctly guessing the very next line of dialogue (10 pts per line), so why not play along and see how many you can score.
Leaving no 1980's action movie cliche un-sampled this really is a masterclass in post-it note writing, that trick of writing down not plot points but action beats lifted from your favourite films on post-it notes and sticking them on a board and then rearranging them into a 'plot'. After that it's just a matter of giving a line of guff for one of the characters to speak. Unfortunately the two writers, come undone when they realise they can't provide lines to all their cast leaving many to literally stand around while others do stuff. Along with the action beats our two plucky writers waste no effort in recycling tried and tested ideas lifted from all their favourite Christmas films. Although a hinted at 'origin' story for this St. Nick is quite welcomed, going a way to explain Santa's lethal abilities.
The servants are giving very short thrift in this, as they are all brutally massacred, while their rich masters, the family, who all deserve horrible deaths emerge relatively unscathed. There's an incredibly savage Home Alone rift late in the second act which sees a series of the criminals quite savagely killed by a little girl, who seems utterly unfazed by the deaths her Home Alone inspired bobby traps cause.
That said, the action beats are funny, David Harbour and John Leguizamo (his second film of the week for me!) are game, but poor Beverley D'Angelo feels wasted and seems to spend most of the time getting punched in the face. Sadly the film loses momentum in the middle when we spend far too long time with Santa and the little girl as they talk over a pair of kid's two-way radios, mimicking Die Hard again.
The film builds to an obvious ending and just as you're wondering what's with the chimney stack in the garden, we're done and Santa has his mojo back, the little girl's separated parents back together again, and all the crimbos are horribly and brutally dead, I mean really horribly dead, so you know. Happy Christmas everyone.
Overall, It's quite fun, rather silly and very violent. It certainly won't win any awards for originality. Particularly in light of the fact it's only been two years since Mel Gibson donned the red suit for The Fatman, another violent Santa movie. Consider it a stocking filler rather than a main present and you shouldn't be too disappointed.
6/10
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