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Albeit in a very cranky way. While the movie did not cross the $100-million box office mark domestically, it did a little better than what you’d call a cult movie. Advertisement. The “Bad Santa” brand is strong in other places that count. Just look at the cast for the sequel: Thornton, Tony Cox, and poor Brett Kelly (who played the sad ...
Nov 23, 2016 · Fueled by cheap whiskey, greed and hatred, Willie Soke (Billy Bob Thornton) teams up with his angry little sidekick, Marcus, to knock off a Chicago charity on Christmas Eve. Along for the ride is ...
- (135)
- Mark Waters
- R
- Billy Bob Thornton
Nov 16, 2016 · November 16, 2016 6:00am. Raunchy, rude and politically incorrect, Bad Santa 2 arrives in time for the holidays like an outcast uncle making an impromptu visit. For those who’ve endured the long ...
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- The return of a character that should have been left alone.
- Verdict
By Alex Welch
Posted: Nov 23, 2016 6:15 pm
It’s a rule well-known by critics and general moviegoers alike that there are some films that really should be left alone. It doesn’t take more than a few minutes of watching Bad Santa 2 before you realize how much the filmmakers ignored that rule with this comedy sequel too, because as much as we all like to make fun of them, sometimes happy endings are the only, and best possible, outcomes for a film. So when the original Bad Santa ended with Willie T. Stokes (Billy Bob Thornton) in the hospital with a girlfriend and even a surrogate kid, it felt strangely perfect for the admittedly awful protagonist.
The inherent problem with making a sequel to a film like that then, with the intent of making it even dirtier and raunchier than its predecessor, is that you effectively have to then take that happy ending away. This means that when we meet Willie again in Bad Santa 2, Lauren Graham’s Sue has left him, he’s even drunker and hornier than in the first film, and has lost yet another one of his dead-end day jobs in Arizona. As he sticks his head in an electric oven to commit suicide, you realize just how inhumane it was to bring this character back in the first place, and you don’t need to look much further than Thornton’s lifeless, lackluster opening narration for that fact to truly hit home.
But Willie has been brought back again nonetheless, and this time he’s reuniting with his former partner, Marcus (Tony Cox), who’s just been released from prison following his attempted murder of Willie and robbery in the first film, offering to bring his old friend in on a new robbery job in Chicago, guaranteed to leave them rich once and for all. It’s coming just in time for Christmas as well, where Willie can don his old Santa suit once more, and Marcus can begrudgingly slip back into his Elf costume.
Predictably, not everything is as it seems when Willie arrives in the frozen tundra that is Chicago in December, and it’s revealed that Marcus’ secret other partner on the job is none other than Willie’s estranged mother, Sunny (Kathy Bates), who believe it or not, might even be more foul and despicable than her son. After being persuaded into helping Marcus and his Mother with the job, the trio embark on a heist of buffoonish, trashy shenanigans that brings a number of forgettable, also awful side characters into the fray.
Bad Santa 2 may seem like the belated Christmas gift you’ve been waiting years for, but watching it is the equivalent of tearing off the wrapping paper and realizing what you’ve been given is nothing more than the box of the toy you actually wanted.
- Alex Welch
Nov 22, 2016 · Nov 23, 2016, 5:52 PM PST. Billy Bob Thornton returns in Bad Santa 2. Jan Thijs / Broad Green Pictures / Miramax. Alissa Wilkinson covers film and culture for Vox. Alissa is a member of the New ...
Nov 23, 2016 · Bad Santa 2: Directed by Mark Waters. With Billy Bob Thornton, Kathy Bates, Tony Cox, Christina Hendricks. Fueled by cheap whiskey, greed and hatred, Willie teams up once again with his angry little sidekick, Marcus, to knock off a Chicago charity on Christmas Eve.
Full Review | Original Score: 3.0/4.0 | Sep 2, 2020. The film seems overly structured, stripped of anything resembling subtlety, and largely devoid of jokes or anything you'd be tempted to laugh ...
