Bad Santa

REVIEW
Leave the PC Police at the door for this one, for Bad Santa is a low-down and crude black comedy with the potential to offend nearly everyone. It's also downright hilarious, a refreshingly un-PC laughfest that is guaranteed to make you cringe while you hold your sides. Making one of the great film creeps, Thornton is venom dipped in sleaze as Willie Stokes, a low-life, alcoholic con man who every year at the holidays teams with his dwarf partner-in-crime Marcus (Cox) to play Santa and his elf, and then rob the store where they're working on Christmas Eve. In Phoenix, they find the perfect store and store manager patsy (Ritter in his final film role). What they didn't count on is a parentless eight-year-old (Kelly) who latches on to "Santa" and becomes the target of what has to be some of the most vitriolic verbal abuse ever heaped upon a child. It's hysterical, and one can't but wonder what series of tricks and tortures did they conceive to make this kid react like he does. As Marcus, Cox is great as the foul-mouthed sidekick . . . just when you thought you heard it all out of Willie's mouth, then comes Marcus with a vulgar, hilarious barrage as to make Quentin Tarantino rethink free speech. Though the film could have been more tightly edited, the final result is laugh-out-loud funny, and kudos go to director Zwigoff and writers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa for not sanitizing any of the many, often nasty jokes. The most enjoyably "offensive" comedy since South Park.

FAVORITE LINE
"Why don't you wish in one hand, and shit in the other. See which one fills up first." – Billy Bob Thornton as Willie