Film Review: VIOLENT NIGHT (2022): Santa Claus Faces Off Against Evil Mercenaries in a Film That’s a Rockin’ Good Time

Violent Night Review

Violent Night (2022) Film Review, a movie directed by Tommy Wirkola, written by Pat Casey and John Miller and starring David Harbour, John Leguizamo, Cam Gigandet, Alex Hassell, Alexia Louder, Beverly D’Angelo, Leah Brady, Alexander Elliot, Brendan Fletcher, Mike Dopud, Mitra Suri, Stephanie Sy, Erik Athavale, Cha-Lee Yoon, Phong Giang, Frederick Allen and Andre Erikson.

David Harbour plays Santa Claus in Violent Night which is the type of movie that audiences may not believe is real until they see it for themselves. It is a marvelously twisted, yet enormously entertaining action picture if you can get through some gruesome Home Alone-type traps that are definitely more R-rated than the ones Macaulay Culkin used in the original Home Alone. Die Hard is the other obvious inspiration for the new film but there are also shades of the Michael J. Fox comedy Greedy in the opening scenes of the picture and plenty of Bad Santa vibes are also to be found in Violent Night as well.

This new picture opens in England with Santa Claus (Harbour) at a bar drinking his sorrows away as a friendly customer agrees to pay poor Mr. Claus’s tab. Santa leaves behind a gift for the bartender’s kid and when the bartender wonders how this guy knew her child’s name, she runs upstairs to see Santa take off with his reindeer before vomiting on her. This scene is when we know we’re in for a wickedly gross good time.

We jump to Massachusetts where we meet a dysfunctional family. Gertrude (Beverly D’Angelo) is the rich matriarch of a family whose daughter Alva (Edi Patterson) believes will be dropping dead soon thus leaving the family company fortune to her children. D’Angelo is hysterical in her role here as she says she can tell the difference between the S-word and chocolate cake. She has so much fun here that one wishes there were a bit more funny one-liners from her before the picture settles into the action picture it ultimately becomes.

The heart of the movie which is the best part of it is the young character of Trudy (Leah Brady). She’s the daughter of Jason (Alex Hassell) who is romantically involved with Linda (Alexis Louder). As played by Brady, Trudy is the character who inspires Harbour’s Santa Claus to fight against the evil mercenaries headed by the villain known as Scrooge (John Leguizamo) who threaten her and her family. It seems Scrooge and his bandits want to take the fortune they believe Gertrude possesses and they will do anything to get their hands on it and kill the family.

Santa Claus is ready to fight to protect Trudy from the evil that threatens her. There’s a scene where a Christmas tree star light is jammed into the eye ball of a goon and then Santa turns it on thus electrocuting the baddie. It’s not that Trudy doesn’t have any tricks up her sleeves as well to fight back against the villains. When some key mercenaries come after her, Trudy sets a nail on the staircase which is clearly visible. However, there’s a faulty step and the evil guy falls through the step and the nail goes right through his chin. Yeah, these traps are brutal and vicious and if you can handle them, you’ll have a bloody good time.

When Santa Claus and Scrooge face off, we get an awesome confrontational sequence towards the end where the two characters will be pitted against each other. Only one can survive. Will good triumph versus evil or will Scrooge get the loot and end Christmas forever?

Alexis Louder and Leah Brady both have characters in the movie to watch closely as they develop throughout the picture. Louder excels in one action scene where her character’s life is put in extreme jeopardy. Brady’s Trudy believes in Santa Claus and makes the audience believe in him as well through her endearing performance. She has fun on screen watching the bad guys take some nasty spills and the audience will as well.

Leguizamo has been playing interesting characters these days. He was the Movie Star in The Menu and now Scrooge in Violent Night. Leguizamo has always been one of our most underappreciated actors from as far back as the mid 1990’s with A Pyromaniac’s Love Story to Summer of Sam from the late 1990’s and it’s great to see him working again and reveling in his evil characterization here.

David Harbour makes the part of Santa Claus come to life in such a way that audiences will be tremendously entertained especially by the writing of Harbour’s dialogue which includes some crowd-pleasing one-liners. Harbour wears the Santa suit with pride and uses any and all weapons that are at his disposal. As directed by Tommy Wirkola, the picture delivers the goods for people willing to sit through an ultra-violent picture like this.

This film is primarily set on Christmas Eve and is bound to be a sure-fire holiday classic down the line for certain people who enjoy more violent mainstream entertainment. It’s too gory to be recommended too highly. Let’s face it, people may wince at some of the violence here but if you’re willing to sit back and watch the talented Harbour and Leguizamo go at it, you won’t be disappointed. There’s something just truly neat about a movie which does something really different and makes audiences appreciate it and keep watching even with the bloody scenes that are flung rapidly at the viewer. Violent Night is still rather quite an enjoyable movie.

Rating: 7/10

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