Violent Night
When a team of mercenaries breaks into a wealthy family compound on Christmas Eve, taking everyone inside hostage, the team isn’t prepared for a surprise combatant: Santa Claus is on the grounds, and he’s about to show why this Nick is no saint.
- Released: 2022-11-30
- Runtime: 111 minutes
- Genre: Action, Comedy
- Stars: David Harbour, John Leguizamo, Beverly D'Angelo, Alex Hassell, Alexis Louder, Edi Patterson, Cam Gigandet, André Eriksen, Alexander Elliot, Mitra Suri, John B. Lowe, Sean Skene, Vance Halldorson, Thomas Lorber, Adam Hurtig, Ron Borges, Adrian Persad, Marc-André Brisebois, Dylan Rampulla, Maxime Laurin
- Director: Tommy Wirkola
Comments
- cknorton-82131 - 13 January 2023
Offers a few laugh out loud moments, plenty of originality, and a fun performance by David Harbour, but that's about it.
Overall: 5.35
Summary: Offers a few laugh out loud moments, plenty of originality, and a fun performance by David Harbour, but that's about it. There are too many elements at play, too many themes and genre mashing, that it loses structure and impact or anything emotionally weighty to grab you. Some of the humor hits solidly, but when you get to the action sequences, they don't hold much weight like Santa's hammer. You have to suspend reality and any logic in its entirety to have fun as a viewer, but I guess that's the point. Worth a watch, but nothing we need to revisit every holiday season.
Setting, Conflict, Character, Dialogue, Theme, Plot, and Climax: C-
Runtime: 1:52
Audience Engagement (do you feel runtime): No
Top Genres: Action, Comedy, Crime, Fantasy, Thriller (Fiction)
Genre(s) rating Action - 6 Comedy - 6 Crime - 5 Fantasy - 6 Thriller - 5
Genre Average Score: 5.6 Directing: 6 Cinematography/lighting: 8 Story/Narrative: 5 Structure: 3 Dialogue: 5 Score(music): 5 Editing: 6 Acting: 4 Characterization: 4 Mise en Scène/Visual Design: 3 Visual Effects: 7 Sound Design: 6 Costumes/Makeup: 6 Lasting Impact: 4 Originality: 8
Overall: 5.35. - thegreenseas - 8 January 2023
Too Self-Conscious
A lot of modern film writers seem to have this attitude of, "this has been done before", so they give a nod and wink to previous films with a homage, but it ruins all immersion. The Home Alone reference by the child actor and then the actual recreatment of said scene felt almost like a pre-emptive apology for making a similar themed film. What happened to ballsy writers who write films they would want to watch instead of trying to appease audiences and film nerds? Also, as violent as this film was, the killings were underwhelming and were basically Santa using a sledge hammer over and over again in the most unimaginative, boring way possible. For exciting violent choreography see Kick-Ass. I would have enjoyed this more if Santa just snapped and turned into a frenzied maniac instead of hiding most of the time. The ending was disappointing. The adults still don't believe in Santa but then see his reindeer parked in the snow, and instead of them taking off and showing us their faces looking in amazement, they just cut to the reindeers flying and then cut to the adults just standing there talking amongst themselves...there was no, "OMG he really is Santa!" from the family.
