Violent Night review: David Harbour takes the reins of a wildly naughty slay ride
Director Tommy Wirkola's follow-up to Dead Snow is an anti-Christmas thriller that delivers both violence and laughs
Film Reviews David Harbour
Candy canes may be sweet and cutely reminiscent of Christmas, but it turns out they make a great shiv if you suck on one in just the right way. That’s just one of the delightful details that makes Violent Night, the latest action-comedy from Dead Snow director Tommy Wirkola, worth a trip to the cinema this holiday season. Featuring Hollywood’s resident curmudgeon David Harbour as a hilariously haggard Saint Nick, this anti-Christmas Christmas movie foregrounds its B-movie naughtiness and pays just enough attention to its more mainstream niceness, resulting in fun for the whole family—or the adults in families, anyway.
Pat Casey and Josh Miller’s screenplay is blessedly straightforward: on Christmas Eve, a team of mercenaries takes a wealthy family hostage just as Santa Claus is delivering presents at their compound. Abandoned by his reindeer and running low on Christmas magic, this world-weary Santa must believe in himself again to cross the thieves off his naughty list (and dispatch them in delightfully graphic ways). It’s a premise that’s just clever enough to work; although too many anachronistically cheery needle drops during gruesome fight sequences abound, there’s plenty to milk from the juxtaposition of family-friendly Christmas spirit and R-rated action and comedy.
Take the fight sequence that finds Santa pulling out toys at random from his Mary Poppins-like magic sack, hoping to wield one as a weapon (“Video game … video game … Die Hard on Blu-Ray …”) until he not only embeds an ornamental star in a foe’s eye, but plugs in its lights so that his adversary’s head catches fire. Wirkola is a master at staging such visual gags amid impeccably choreographed brawls that feel believably desperate, improvised, and so stupid they’re smart. Tinsel, nutcrackers, cookies, icicles, Christmas trees—anything within reach is fair game for Harbour’s sinful saint and the hostages he’s charged with saving.
While watching Santa swing a hammer proves delightful (there’s a too-brief glimpse of backstory that positions him as a Viking warrior, and why not?), most inspired is the scene that reimagines Home Alone with an R rating. Leah Brady’s precocious young Trudy, recently influenced by that very Christmas classic, stages an escalating series of booby traps that take both viewers and her poor assailants by surprise. At my screening, audience members gave the sequence a deserved standing ovation.
The laughs-per-minute ratio is so high during those fight scenes that everything between them can feel like lulls. Comedy in violence is more Wirkola’s forte than comedy in family squabbles, and Alex Hassell and Alexis Louder as Trudy’s separated parents bring little to that table. Luckily their foil is Beverly D’Angelo in a role she was born to play, the fabulously profane matriarch of the Lightstones’ corporation.
Edi Patterson, Cam Gigandet, and Alexander Elliot round out the family, each more shamelessly despicable than the last (no one here is good, for goodness’ sake). As mercenary leader “Mr. Scrooge,” John Leguizamo extends his track record of pitch-perfect supporting performances; by opting for genuinely threatening rather than playing up the yuks, he establishes the stakes of this otherwise thin story. And Brady is positively adorable, the perfect complement to Harbour and the catalyst for bringing out his inevitable soft side.
Dare I say there’s an insightful element to Violent Night that positions Harbour as a cinematic Santa for the ages? Swigging beers on his big night, our hero dubs today’s kids “little junkies” who enjoy their presents for mere moments before wanting more, more, more. He later encounters a Christmas wish list that just asks for cash. There’s obvious comedy in a jolly old Saint Nick who drinks whiskey instead of milk, pisses out of his sleigh, and bashes bad guys’ heads in, but Casey and Miller, with Wirkola’s genre-balancing direction, have actually crafted an intriguingly anti-capitalist Claus.
“The naughty list just grows and grows,” he laments at one point, in response to a new wave of wrongdoers making this night before Christmas anything but calm. But it doubles as a snapshot of human society in 2022; you won’t catch me claiming Santa isn’t real, as I don’t want to end up on the naughty list. All I’m saying is if he’s up there at the North Pole now, it’s not impossible that he resembles Harbour in this film: anti-greed, burnt out, and cynical as hell.
65 Comments
Bless you, David Harbour. You have your niche and you love it.Also, if you haven’t seen Architectural Digest’s walk-through of his NYC loft, it’s a real treat.
I really want a bathroom like that!
just be rich then.
The one role I can think of where he’s a bit more subdued (and ultimately defeated) is in Black Mass, as a FBI agent who plays along with his partner’s corruption and pays for it. He’s great in that.But yeah, otherwise – kicking ass and taking names.
I often forget he also played a shady CIA guy in Quantum of Solace.
Any role that requires a menacing and questionable character, he’s your guy.
Plus, he got to bone Kate Winslet in the front seat of his car in Revolutionary Road.
I’ll have to take your word for it on that one.
Please do. It’s a must-miss full of capital-A “Acting.”
Yeah that one screamed “Important Film!” without the goods to back it up.
Same, was a welcome presence when I rewatched that one.
He’s excellent as a villain in Walk Among The Tombstones
Best part of that movie. He’s really good at being off putting.
I thought he was good in extraction too, that movie is a bit underrated in general
Santa thinks wanting a gift of cash is greedy? It’s the most wonderous gift one can receive after years of getting half-assed and thoughtless gifts for years.Ask me how I know?Also, I was hoping this movie would be good. Phew.
I’m the person who just gives cash. And it’s 100% because I’m lazy.
Sounds like a much better situation. Can you be my gift giver? I prefer and have always preferred gifts of cash (at least once I was old enough to understand the ‘utility’ of cash).
You ever see the old “Ask a Ninja”? clips? One of my favs was what gift to give a ninja. The answer was something like, give a gift card because it says you don’t know me at all. Same with cash.Actually here’s the link:
Once my friends’ kids all got tablets or smartphones, it’s been nothing but Apple cards and Android cards ever since.And at places like Sam’s or Costco, you can usually get $100 worth of cards for like $95. Not HUGE savings, but a deal’s a deal.
I know people who don’t like to give cash because it doesn’t take thought or care, but I have found you can give cash in fun ways. If it’s a small amount, you can get gold dollar coins and fill a piggy bank. If it’s a larger amount, you can fold the bills into origami and box them up. And those are just two examples. I can think of a lot more ways to make a gift of cash into a fun gift giving experience.
I’m definitely in the thoughtful gift-giver camp, but if you don’t have any great ideas (especially for a kid) then there are a bunch of ways to attach it to a small actual gift, where most of the value is still the cold card cash.
That is another excellent idea! Like for a kid, package the cash attached to some junky toy (like an action figure holding a rolled up bill in each fist).
How many of them involve tying the bills to your penis and waggling them at children?
This sounds amazing. I never knew I needed Die Hard Santa but I need it.
For some reason, this makes me want to watch The Ref again, a funny Dennis Leary Christmas movie. I’m glad this movie is as good as the vibe I got off watching the previews fo rit.
You had me at Bean Dip.
This looks fun, but isn’t it just the promo for The Night the Reindeer Died from Scrooged?
“Director Tommy Wirkola’s follow-up to Dead Snow”Wirkola made FIVE movies between Dead Snow and this, INCLUDING a sequel, and then two more movies after the sequel. This is, in no way, his follow-up to Dead Snow.
I thought this sounded dumb as hell and came ready to hate it. Now it sounds dumb as hell and I… think I’m gonna go see it?
I thought this sounded dumb as hell in all of the ways that could make a really watchable movie.
21st century answer to It’s A Wonderful Life this isn’t but at least they’re honest. This is dumb violence flavored with a bit of Christmas cynicism. They know exactly what they’re selling and I am here for it!
I believe you are contractually required to partake in this activity now.
So Harbour combined Stranger Things’ police chief Hopper with his Red Guardian and John McClane? You sonovabitch, I’m in.
Throw in some Bad Santa (at the beginning) and Home Alone and pretty much yeah.
Finally got around to Krampus last year, which was thoroughly entertaining, so I’m ready for some new Christmas nastiness this season.
Been meaning to watch Krampus for years. Might finally get around to it now that it’s on Peacock.
If you liked the trailer you won’t be disappointed. It’s exactly what it says it is.
Yeah, Krampus has been on my yearly watch list since it came out. It’s both serious and silly enough to make it truly entertaining, and the effects are pretty good for a movie that involves, you know, murderous gingerbread men.Plus, so much snow–very festive.
Well, as we all know, Santa is an anagram for Satan. What this movie presupposes is, what if they’re the same guy?
Unfortunately, it was written in an obsolete vernacular.
Leguizamo was actually a henchman in Die Hard 2, so this is impressive meta casting.
I forget about Christmas themed action and/or horror movies every year, and then I am usually pleasantly surprised by at least one new release. I definitely did not know I needed Santa as an action/horror hero, but I can already tell this is going to be a yearly favorite.
This is such a great idea for a premise I’m surprised it hasn’t been done before. (Not often, anyway)
I seem to remember a movie with the wrestler “Goldberg” that premised Santa as a Demon…
Defeated with curling!
Santa’s Slay is a masterpiece.
Mmmaybe not “masterpiece”, but definitely *damn good* and lotsa fun!
you had me at david harbour.
Originally I thought this would be terrible. Then I thought it’d be bad but hilarious. Now I find out it’s by the director of Dead Snow? Oh man.
Bad guys die gory painful deaths, please?
The final gory death in the film made the theater I was in lose it.
Everything in the loft got the very best gaps and winces at my screening, as well as… that moment.
See now this John Leguizamo performance I understand why he’s getting punished, I still can’t grasp as to why he, his assistant and the rich dude’s wife got punished in The Menu.
He got punished because Chef Slowik hated his movie. Nothing more than that. He was angry that his precious time off watching a bad movie, and blamed the lead actor (rather than writer, director, producer, studio, etc). If we want to give Slowik more credit, we could say that he felt Leguizamo’s character shouldn’t have whored his talent out, just like Slowik did. Leguizamo deserves to die the same reason Slowik is killing himself (and everyone else).
His assistant was stealing from him, working for a past his prime, desperate fame junky when she, too, could have been honest and not ‘wasted’ her talent serving a burned out has been.
The rich dude’s wife (Judith Light from Who’s the Boss?) was largely innocent of her husbands perverse philandering, though she clearly knew what was going on and choosing to turn a blind eye toward it. But she also ate at Hawthone COUNTLESS times, and couldn’t even remember what kind of fish she had last time, endlessly consuming what was considered ‘rare, great art’ without thought or consideration.
The reveal of why John Leguizamo was there was one of the big laughs of the movie; huge laugh from the whole theater. But I sort of think that the take away isn’t supposed to be that there’s some big philosophical reason behind the actor’s invitation, it’s just that Slowik is fucking crazy. He’d already committed to an absurd murder/suicide dinner performance, so why not also invite that actor from that shitty movie he hated?
Yeah. That’s where I come down on it as well…
Also why didn’t ANY of the others like order a Big Mac if they knew that’s how to survive. I mean like I don’t know I kinda wanted the three of them to survive because they didn’t commit anything to get immolated over. Like working for someone, making a bad film, not knowing what you ate for tea last year. Those aren’t real reasons to kill people over. I don’t like the ending, I especially don’t like how the main character kinda acted all Nero like. Again if I were to rewrite the ending I’d save those three. Like John Leguizamo was just Stanley Tucci man. Like either save those three or kill off Anya Taylor Joy. Don’t have a glorified Big Mac save the day dude.I do admit I do like how Chef Slowik wasn’t the biggest asshole in the film, it was Nicholas Hoult. Like a straight up talentless starfucker man. Like this dude straight up tried to sacrifice a motherfucker just to meet his idol.
I don’t know like I just believe that the 1990s Super Mario Bros film ain’t an excuse to burn someone alive.
I don’t think you’re supposed to come away from “The Menu” thinking everyone got what they deserved.
Yeah but like the majority of them deserved to die. Chef Slowik, Nicolas Hoult and the rest of the restaurant deserved to die because they were planning on committing a mass murder or in Hoult’s case he knew that there was a murder happening and he didn’t tell anyone, the mom was abusive, the older dude misappropriated the use of hookers and the three bros deserved to perish because they were like rich and all rich people deserve to die. Plus they were rude to the staff. Iunno I just didn’t dig the ending, I felt it meanspirited like the main character eats food whilst witnessing a bunch of people getting horrifically murdered is a bit of a perverse ending.
The simple answer is he viewed them all as “takers,” ie spoiled, entitled rich people, and was presumably so jaded at that point that that was reason enough. Hence the exchange where he says the assistant must die because she went to Brown and has no student loans.
You had me at Tommy Wirkola
Ever since that guy in Silent Night, Deadly Night walked in on an attempted rape and killed the rapist, I’ve wanted to see a heroic Murder Santa. (I think he killed the girl too, so…not heroic.) My time has finally come.
Saw it last night with my wife, son, and daughter in-law. It was fine, but it could have been great. I was hoping for a really really mean, pissed off Santa. The only characters in the film that were worthy of being spared were Linda & Trudy, I kind of wanted Santa to take the others out. Also, film making is getting lazy. One more minute of backstory easily could have hinted at how he became Santa. But instead, let’s put in 10 minutes of Home Alone crap.
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Watching this movie was the most fun I had watching a movie in 2022. It is a perfect version of what it tries to be – an absurd, violent, gory, hilarious and surprisingly touching when needed future Christmas classic.