Violent Night Cements David Harbour As A Santa Claus For The Ages

The following post contains major spoilers for "Violent Night."

The Christmas movies we hold to our chest are passed on from year to year, as they often remind you of how magical the spirit of the holiday season can be. The town of Bedford Falls coming to George Bailey's aid in "It's a Wonderful Life" always pushes me towards a much needed emotional catharsis. The mischief of Kevin McCallister fortifying the family abode through barbarous traps in "Home Alone" (more so "Home Alone 2" for my tastes) tends to put a sadistic smile on my face. But what if there was a movie that entertains both kinds of holiday cheer, in the form of Santa Claus throwing a mercenary goon into a snow blower?

From director Tommy Wirkola ("Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters") comes the absurdly entertaining "Violent Night," a gory holiday action flick that props up David Harbour as a disillusioned Santa who comes down the wrong chimney at the worst time. When the gift-giver realizes that he's going to have to fight his way out of the isolated manor, this becomes a bone-crunching spectacle I couldn't get enough of. /Film's Ben F. Silverio designates it as a "soon-to-be Christmas classic" in his review.

Films revolving around a Santa Claus who doesn't wholly adhere to the sugar plum sensibilities of the festive tale are nothing new. "Violent Night" delivers something equally as fierce as any entry in the killer in a red suit subgenre, but with a good dude underneath the snow white beard.

You walk into "Violent Night" with the knowledge that the actual Santa Claus is forced to get down and dirty with a team of mercenaries that are trying to pull off a $300 million heist at the Connecticut compound. He's ready to walk away, but after seeing the innocence of young Trudy Lightstone (Leah Brady), Santa gears up for the impromptu rescue of a lifetime.

"Violent Night" finds a clever way to differentiate the mercs that Santa takes out, as most of them have festive names such as Candy Cane (Mitra Suri) and Frosty (Can Aydin). Tinsel (Phong Giang) is the first of many to pick a fight. It's a really fun sequence that sets the tone of what Harbour is up against. Jolly ol' St. Nick gets knocked down a peg, given that he's piss drunk upon encountering the festive gunfire. Despite getting hurled out the window, Santa inadvertently impales Tinsel on a massive decorative icicle outside.

From there, "Violent Night" lets Harbour gloriously unload on Mr. Scrooge (John Leguizamo) and his team. His Santa starts out fighting back purely out of survival, but with the gradual influx of bodies on his nice list, he slowly leans into actually enjoying it. "I've gotta watch," Santa says after stuffing a live grenade down a merc's pants.

Harbour handing out beatings in a Santa suit would have been funny in its own right, but the crucial piece of his performance lies in the moments in between.

Perhaps the most surprising, yet welcome detour of "Violent Night" arrives in the form of Santa's origin. He takes a short breather to stitch up some of his wounds, which reveals a jacked set of heavily tattooed muscles. It was at this moment I became intrigued as to where they could possibly be going with this.

Santa recalls to Trudy that he wasn't always Father Christmas, but a bloodthirsty Viking named Nicumund the Red, who used his mighty sledgehammer-like weapon (appropriately known as Skullcrusher) to brutalize his enemies in the heat of battle. In the years since, he's tried to wipe away his murderous tendencies in favor of the Christmas magic that's been bestowed upon him. I'm all in favor of more Christmas movies suddenly turning into "The Northman."

I really didn't need to know how Santa is able to go toe-to-toe with a group of mercenaries in order to have a good time, but the explanation that "Violent Night" comes up with is genius, giving the movie a "John Wick"-esque twist of a ruthless killer coming out of retirement. Harbour's Santa finds an inherent (and contagious) glee in reacquainting himself with his prior bloodlust.

But for all of the candy cane shivving and ice skate slashing, the secret weapon to Harbour's performance is built from the foundation of the most heartwarming Christmas movies.

For all the instances in which Harbour exacts his festive pound of flesh, a large part of why "Violent Night" succeeds is because, above all else, it's also a genuinely sweet movie. It's as much "Miracle on 34th Street" as it is "Die Hard." Harbour plays Santa as someone who loved his job at one point, but the sterilization of children's imaginations when it came to their presents led him to become embittered with the whole thing.

He not only has to grapple with his own disenchantment of the job, but whether or not he has a responsibility to save the children he finds in less than ideal living situations. "Violent Night" briefly gets into this when he takes a neglectful father's six-pack for himself, while leaving a present behind for the small child. He seems more content with nabbing free booze than saving the kid. It's with Mr. Scrooge, however, where the film shows the direct result of someone falling off of Santa's radar; his less-than-stellar home life led to the accidental death that branded him on the naughty list.

It isn't until Santa's tasked with rescuing Trudy that he finds his own internal Christmas spirit. Even when she manages to get a few hits in her way through some gnarly traps that evoke the actual brutality of "Home Alone," it's shockingly adorable on top of making you wince. I also loved how the happenstance of stumbling upon Trudy's other walkie-talkie, which her father (Alex Hassell) tells her is a direct hotline to Santa, leads the pair to communicate with one another throughout a series of heartwarming exchanges.

Harbour has been around the block, but his stints in "Stranger Things" and "Black Widow" showed an actor who could do the action fluff while retaining a great deal of humor. He's an inherently funny dude, which is exactly what a movie like "Violent Night" calls for. Just to set the mood, a wide-eyed bartender runs up to the roof to see the magic of Christmas before her eyes, which he hilariously ruins by blowing chunks from atop his moving sleigh.

Patrick Casey and Joshua Miller's screenplay assumes that from this point on, you know what kind of movie you're getting yourself into, so there's no need for their characters to plainly remind you of its ridiculousness. Even when Santa has a gun to his head, he still can't turn back on his profession, loudly exclaiming "I'm Santa Claus!" When he attempts to intimidate Mr. Scrooge by saying "Santa Claus is coming to town" in a gruff demeanor, I believe the sincerity in his tone.

The great thing about movie Santas is the diversity in the ways they spread Christmas cheer. Edmund Gwenn ("Miracle on 34th Street"), Richard Attenborough (ditto), and Kurt Russell ("The Christmas Chronicles") fill you with the wonder of the season, whereas Robert Brian Wilson ("Silent Night, Deadly Night") and Patrick Floersheim ("Deadly Games") bring a fearful intensity. Smack dab in the middle is Harbour, who presents the best of both worlds, and will likely be remembered as a screen Santa folks will come to love as the film is passed on every year.

"Violent Night" is now playing in theaters nationwide.