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Nothing about Violent Night should work on paper. It is the premise of Die Hard with a pinch of Home Alone thrown in for flavor, but instead of a NYPD officer in the lead role it’s David Harbour as Santa Claus. The movie works because it leans into this conceit so hard that it actually works.
Violent Night follows Santa Claus as he stumbles upon a house that is being robbed of hundreds of millions of dollars. In an effort to save the family in the house, Santa has to team up with a little girl trapped in the house to dispatch all the terrorists and save as many lives as they can. Besides David Harbour as Santa, the cast is filled out with Alex Hassell and Alexis Louder as the parents of the little girl, Beverly D’Angelo as the matriarch of the family, and John Leguizamo, Mitra Suri, Brendan Fletcher, and Andre Erikson as the terrorists.
Surprisingly, some of the most interesting parts of the movie come from the action sequences, which are among the year’s best. The fight choreography is unique and makes use of the environment in creative ways. It makes the fight sequences work as a method to carry the movie, alongside Harbour’s performance.
That said, believe it or not the movie does have issues as well. It is a little long and backstories are almost needless. As with The Princess earlier this year, when a movie like this is made, the less story the better. The origin for Santa is not needed, nor is the origin for why the leader of the terrorists hates Christmas. This is especially true since neither of these dovetails particularly well into the main plot to make it a worthwhile tangent. On top of that, there is an issue where the family is represented as too cartoonishly evil to make the viewer hate them, only to have them have a happy ending at the climax. Typically, when a movie is going to take the steps to make characters that completely unlikable, it is so they can either learn something or end up dead without the viewer feeling bad, however since neither happens and no one experiences any growth, it never feels like it matters.
At the end of the day, Violent Night is an entertaining way to spend two hours. The action sequences are fun and it has some of the most ridiculous dialogue in a movie, however since it is delivered in an interesting way and is played totally straight, it works. It is definitely worth a watch if one likes ultraviolent action movies.
Final Rating: 8/10
