Violent Night (2022)

Violent Night

• David Harbour’s Santa ain’t no John McClane. This movie is essentially ‘Die Hard’ with a touch of ‘Home Alone’. Is it a direct rip-off? No, but it sure feels like it at times. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the action scenes, but there’s nothing special about this movie. I’m kind of mixed on how I feel about this. It had its bright spots, but a good chunk of it was stupid and pointless. Sometimes I like stupid and pointless, but in this particular case, it doesn’t work. It’s just Santa beating up bad guys. I like the concept, but it didn’t deliver like I was hoping it would. The story was just bad. I can’t put it any simpler than I already have: Santa beating up bad guys. It didn’t grasp me. I do think David Harbour did a decent job, and there was a surprising amount of character development that was both serious and funny. He was the only good character, though. Everyone else was extremely obnoxious. Some were supposed to be like that, but even the serious characters were hard to watch. John Leguizamo did a solid job, but nothing grabbed me about his character. He was basically a discount Hans Gruber. The biggest highlight of the movie was the action scenes. They were fun, exciting, well shot, and nice and gruesome. Everything in between those scenes was random filler junk that was boring and thoughtless. Overall, this movie was not that well made, but still has fun moments. The good shines through, but the bad shines even brighter. I think I’d only recommend this if you like crappy action films.