Leigh Paatsch awards one out of five stars for film Bad Santa 2
FILM REVIEW: The unexpected sequel Bad Santa 2 has the pungent stench of stale jokes and grim misanthropy wafting off this ugly, uninspired comedy.
Leigh Paatsch
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BAD SANTA 2 (MA15+)
Director: Mark Waters (Mean Girls)
Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Kathy Bates, Tony Cox, Christina Hendricks, Brett Kelly.
Rating: 1 /5
No ho ho ... just woe, so slow.
NO one saw a Bad Santa sequel coming.
And no one will be coming to see Bad Santa 2, once they get a whiff of the pungent stench of stale jokes and grim misanthropy wafting off this ugly, uninspired comedy.
A dead-eyed, half-hearted Billy Bob Thornton reprises the lead role of Willie T. Stokes, a near-destitute, always-on-the-soak alcoholic still paying off his December drinks tab the only way he knows how.
That is by posing as a second-rate Santa-for-hire to cover his tracks as a semi-proficient safecracker.
Willie hasn’t changed one little bit. His pet hates remain (in no fixed order) Christmas, kids who love Christmas, and himself.
His around-the-clock absorption of cheap liquor is only ever interrupted by the occasional behind-the-dumpster-in-a-back-alley seduction of cheap floozies.
What was once one fearlessly crass provocation after another in the original Bad Santa — the relatively innocent days of 2003 seem so long ago — is now just a shifty shakedown of those dumb enough to think they want more of the same.
If you were using a GPS to locate how unfunnily low Bad Santa 2 is prepared to go in terms of 2016 movie comedies, you will find it just north of Robert De Niro’s Dirty Grandpa and way south of Sausage Party.
The whole sluggish experience takes what feels like a lifetime of Christmases to play out. It is as disorienting and unedifying as watching a lost Draught Horse slowly wandering a busy city street and taking a dump at random intervals.
Only two questions come to mind. Why is this happening? And who will clean up this mess afterwards?
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