A Very Genre Christmas: Violent Night (Dir Tommy Wirkola, 1h 57m, 2022)

Stop me if you've heard this one before. A group of heavily armed, extremely organised terrorists storm a Christmas gathering to hold hostages and extort millions of dollars out of the head of the party. All that's standing in their way is a guy, largely fed up with his dead-end job, who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and who must foil the terrorists not with his muscles, but his wits in a brutal, cathartic, and, yes, Christmassy action extravaganza that sees him whittle down the villain's forces before a final showdown. What I've just described, of course is Die Hard (1988), the action movie that made the career of Bruce Willis and the late Alan Rickman, as well as dump the macho action hero outside in the cold for the next decade, replacing them with the everyman (here's my review from 2020).

It's also, undeniably, the plot of our film today, Violent Night, out barely a couple of weeks ago, a film from Tommy Wirkola, the only man who dared to think "What if Zombies...but Nazis" in Død snø (2009), who now dares to think "What if Die Hard...but with Santa?" What follows, as Santa Claus (David Harbour) is stuck in a wealthy family's compound as the forces of Mr Scrooge (John Leguizamo) conspire to steal $300 million is a rip-roaring, holly, jolly, and extremely bloody outing for Old Saint Nick as he dispenses coal and brutal beatdowns to a small army of terrorists and mercenaries to protect a little girl from their machinations.

There's a small problem with the idea of the Christmas action movie, as of late, and it's something that I've thought about a lot since starting these Christmas-themed explorations of genres, and it hinges around this. "How much Christmas needs to be in your action movie, before it becomes a Christmas Action Movie." Take, for example, Die Hard-undeniably a Christmas action movie-it is set during the season, it evokes the mood of Christmas through its music, its feel, (something Die Hard 2 does better) and its entire plot essentially hinges on it being Christmas. Thematically, though, it has little to do with the season; not so Rocky IV, that, whilst not featuring many of the audio-visual trappings of Christmas, aside from Rocky and Drago's fight taking place on Christmas Eve, perfectly captures the themes of redemption, of hope in the darkness.

To be a true Christmas action movie, thus, you need to either capture the season perfectly as a backdrop in music and feeling, and/or have a plot that hinges around the season, and/or have a narrative that ties into the key elements of the season. A film with one of these elements is undeniably a Christmas movie, with two or more, a bone-fide one, but whilst many Christmas films have all three, there are few action movies than can boast this, and those that can often fall into either trying to balance its more fantastical Christmas-themed elements with action chops. Now, of course, comes Violent Night, a film that manages, with remarkable deftness, to balance what is, after all, Santa Claus, complete with sleigh, reindeer, magical sack, and over a millennia of experience with a-very real and heavily armed-threat that he must defeat-to, in a sense, match the magic of Christmas with action chops.

We begin, though, with Harbour's Santa, in a Bristol pub, where, increasingly tired of his job, having lost his passion for delivering presents to children every year, and dependant upon alcohol to get him through the night, takes solace in a fellow Santa, only to make a getaway, and thus surprise the landlady who discovers that he is indeed the genuine article. Who then vomits on her. Hey, it's reassuring to see this version of Santa is just as flawed and tired of their job as the rest of us, but Harbour adds a sense of a physicality to Ol' Saint Nick, as a tough, practical, if largely worn out, and going-through-the-motions figure who desperately needs something to shake up the years of monotony.

At this point, with the film's Santa set up, and his increasingly resigned stance to the season on full display, so it swaps focus to our heroine, Trudy (Leah Bradley), and her estranged parents (Jason, played by Alex Hassell, and Linda (Alexis Louder), who have agreed to put differences aside for her, for a Christmas at the family compound, ruled over by Jason's acerbic, and fantastically wealthy mother, Gertrude Lightstone (Beverly D'Angelo). Here, we are introduced to the other part of the family, Jason's sister, Alva (Edi Patterson), her vacuous boyfriend and action movie star, Morgan Steel (Cam Gigandet), and her equally loathsome streamer son, Bertrude (Alexander Elliot). This, of course is largely an amuse bouche to what is to come; neither half of the family gets on, Jason and Linda don't see eye to eye themselves, and much of their togetherness is for Trudy's benefit, despite the duo overhearing that her one wish for the season is to have her family back together.

It's in short, Die Hard's Christmas party encapsulated in a couple of scenes, in which almost all our dramatis personae (terrorists and civilians) are revealled, and that great mechanism of tension begins to wind up. Trudy is put to bed with a makeshift present of a walkie talkie that her parents promise she can use to communicate to Santa, and all seems well. However, before the film can become too saccharine, our terrorists reveal themselves, in all their Christmas codenamed glory, gun down the security guarding the Lightstones, and, swaggering out of the snow covered grounds, comes John Leguizamo's enjoyably unpleasant Mr Scrooge, a complete antithesis to the season in the form of a slick terrorist who seems to have all the answers, and whose men (and women) seem to have all the answers. Hans Gruber he's not, but Leguizamo is exactly what this film needs, a nasty, vicious and, most of all, naughty-list bound, villain for Santa to deal with.

Fortunately, it is at this point that Santa enters the film, initially taking solace in one of the studies of the house, and enjoying the Lightstones' alcohol collection, before, as Scrooge's men sweep the house, surprising one of them, and after a brutal struggle that begins to belie the tone of the action to come, pushes him out of the window to impale upon a decoration below. His reindeer taking off in fright during the fight, Santa is now marooned at the Lighthouse compound, to face the terrorists with the rest of the family, and decides to take action. Scrooge's men finding the body, and, realising that someone is still loose in the buildings, the criminal mastermind begins the next part of his plan, holding the family hostage for the $300 million supposedly in the vault.

With Santa surprising another of the terrorists in the family's games room, and eventually brutally offing them-much like Die Hard, Santa never truly feels on top of his foes, often outnumbered, outgunned or overpowered by them, until the film's skull-crunching finale shows him at his most powerful-so the film begins to explore his more mystical aspects, from his incredibly long life-the film briefly flashes back to show him as a Viking warrior, and his physique is marked with multiple Norse tattoos, to the magic he uses to do his job, that he explains away several times as not really understanding himself. That this is done over the radio to a frightened Trudy, to console her as she hides in the family attic, that the film never truly loses sight of Santa as a figure of ultimate good, even if he's stabbing terrorists in the face with Christmas decorations, is its best asset, and one that Harbour nails perfectly.

What follows is a masterful game of cat and mouse between Mr Scrooge and Santa; from a wonderfully tense sequence in which the gang seem to have him cornered and captured, only to use his powers to escape from under their noses, causing two of the henchmen to begin to question exactly who their foe is, so the true villainy, and the true threat of Mr Scrooge's plan comes to the fore. Whilst the Lightstones bicker, and Scrooge's cunning plan continues to unfurl, so we are treated to a spectacularly bruising sequence in which Santa, reunited with his faithful Viking age warhammer, a candy cane, and an entire storage shed full of tools lays waste to a small army of soldiers, stepping out victorious into the snow, and barrelling towards a showdown with Mr Scrooge that masterfully matches the magic of the season, and good old fashioned brutal action setpiece.

There's something admirable about Violent Night. Undeniably, the influence of Die Hard cannot be understated-the slow growth of Santa from timid alcoholic who simply wants to escape the chaos that is about to descend upon the Lightstones to their saviour, is little more than John McClane's arc in that film reframed in a colossal house, but the way that Wirkola reframes the nuts and bolts of Die Hard is masterful, essentially reworking the last third of the film into something that utterly steps out of the framework of the classic action movie, to become something more cathartic, bruising, and bloody-where else, after all, can you see Santa beating an entire army of soldiers to death with a hammer? Where else can you see a little girl turning Kevin McAllister's traps from Home Alone lethal? Who else would turn jolly old Saint Nick into a heavy drinking Viking warrior with a favourite hammer and a determined sense of justice against those on the naughty list.

But Wirkola's genius is in keeping this Santa Claus a likeable character-there is, even when bloodstained and brutal, a warmth to him, a physicality to the performance, and a bruising charm, a magic to the performance. There are many cinematic Santa Claus that have graced cinema over the last century of cinema, and, in all honesty, there are few who have managed to make Old Saint Nick as much of a physical presence as a magical one, and fewer still that manage to make Santa Claus a tough bruiser of a figure whilst making him still approachable and kind. His eventual fate is not won by physical strength, though, but by his kindness and warmth and gentleness. This, undeniably, may be Harbour's best ever role.

Violent Night is not a perfect film. There are better action movies set at the festive season, and more original ones-Violent Night builds upon one of the best-there are better cinematic Santas, and, hell, there are better action movies that feature jolly old Saint Nick. But as a complete package, Violent Night is a holly jolly bloody ride, placing Santa Claus in the guise of all-action star, in a film that manages to balance action movie chops, the feeling of the season in all its majesty, and a clear tale of Christmas's key themes, all tied up in a charming, all-action package, ready to unwrap alongside the best of the genre year after year

Rating: Highly Recommended.

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