I enjoyed it, but didn’t think it was nearly as hilarious as I was expecting. I felt bad for the poor kid, and almost as much for billy bob. Strangly, the most memorable parts for me where the ton of bottles fell out of the car door as he was leaving, the part with him falling overhimself and the raindeer, the “boxing match”(even though I felt bad for doing so) and the “fixed” advent calander(“Candy Corn?” “Well, They can’t all be winners”)
The ending made some sense, though it was a little too lenient on Billy Bob. He’d still probably have to serve time for all the robberies if nothing else. I’m glad they did mention the crap the police got over his injury. After all, Police in real life get all sorts of s*** thrown their way for things like trying to subdue a huge guy on drugs with less-lethal methods, so I would be shocked if
police blowing away an unarmed, fleeing suspect would get less scrutiny.
I thought it should have ended (SPOILER)
.
.
.
with him laying face down on the front steps, and let us fill in the blanks in our head. Santa was unredeemable and I think they should have left him for dead, reaching out to the boy.
I think the wooden pickle and “why’d did you paint it brown?” “that’s my blood” was very funny. The pickle was basically just a log with the ends rounded off a little.
My wife has tears well up when she thinks about the kid getting off the bus, and when Santa wrecked his advent calendar.
I really can’t think of another movie that had such a combination of touchy/raunchy/funny/sad to it. That unease was part of the appeal.
Rysdad wrote. . .
“Sorry, but pre-adolescent usage of foul language doesn’t amuse me.”
What kind of usage of foul language does amuse you?
Santa and the Elf were criminals with depressing pasts who used foul language. They played it for laughs, but the movie had humor beyond that. Besides, most of the use of foul-language was rather adult, not pre-adolescent. Or is “you’re not going to shit right for a week” and what pre-adolescents are saying now? (how about, “You got some lip on you midget.” “Yeah, well, these lips were on your wife’s pussy last night. Why don’t you dust that thing off once in a while?”)
And. . .
“I didn’t find one thing remotely redeeming about that waste of $7.50.”
I hope that finding redeeming things in movies isn’t your main criteria for enjoying them.
This movie, in particular, went out of its way to NOT be redeeming. That was part of the appeal after the 1000 other sugary pieces of schmaltz that normally get crapped onto the silver screen every year.
Let me guess . . . you think “The Natural” was a better baseball movie than “Bull Durham”?