Fatman - a Christmas movie starring Mel Gibson as Santa Claus.
Spoilers A-Plenty. You were warned.
In all honesty, you’re better off being spoiled than to watch this travesty.
Holy shit, what a fucking mess. It stars Mel Gibson as a crotchety, gun-collecting Santa who gets a subsidy from the US gov’t for his present deliveries (I still don’t understand how that works). Since so many children are ‘naughty’ these days and get no presents, his subsidy dropped too low to pay the bills, and he decides to take a contract with the US military for the elves to fulfill - control panels for fighter jets.
Dear God this is horrific. There is a stereotypical spoiled-rich-kid-Willie-Wonka-reject, who has Walton Goggins on speed-dial. Goggins is a hit-man who hates Santa, because Santa couldn’t bring his parents back for Christmas when he was little. Goggins and the spoiled rich kid kidnap and threaten a 12-year-old girl with car-battery torture to give up her first prize status in the Science Fair. It’s as bad as it sounds.
Later, the spoiled rich kid contracts with Goggins to kill Santa, since he got coal this Christmas. Goggins drives through the movie on the trail of Santa-Mel, peeing into bottles, playing with a hamster, and killing almost everyone he meets.
Goggins finds Santa-Mel’s workshop and kills the military men who are stationed there because of the military contract. He goes on an ineffectual elf-killing rampage, but Elf #7 initiates, “Barricade Protocol Yellow” and the elves are told to take refuge in the domestic wing. They’ve drilled for a workplace shooting, I guess. All this ruckus interrupts Santa-Mel’s post-coital cuddle, who then arms himself (with Mrs Santa’s help) and he goes forth to do battle with Goggins. “I’VE COME FOR YOUR HEAD, FAT MAAAAAANNN!!!” (Incidentally, Mel is at his normal weight throughout.)
“You think you’re the first? You think I got this job because I’m fat and jolly?” So, it isn’t unusual for people to come gunning for Santa-Mel. I have to say this is the one part of the movie I find believable. I totally think if Mel Gibson were Santa, people would come gunning for him. At this point, I wasn’t even sure who to root for.
The gunfight in the snow that follows would look more at home in the movie, “Fargo” than a friggin’ Santa Claus movie. Shot to pieces, they engage in a hand-to-hand fight in which Goggins is bludgeoned with firewood, Santa-Mel is stabbed brutally and repeatedly, then as he lay in the snow helpless, he is shot in the head. Goggins is shot by Mrs. Claus from a distance, but he chases after her and shoots her in the back before she manages to get the drop on him and gun him down with some large-caliber gun. But thanks to the magic of Santa-Mel, he recovers. Goggins, not so much.
Finally, spoiled rich kid is interrupted by a visit from Santa-Mel and Mrs Claus when he tries to poison his sickly but vicious Grandma. The poisoning is averted, and spoiled rich kid is made to look at the head-wound Goggins gave him. He then threatens to come back if Grandma is hurt, or if the kid acts up again. “The Fat Man has his eye on you, kid.”
Stuff I noted and/or thought about:
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The elves don’t have names, just numbers.
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Santa-Mel gets shot by, “a couple of kids with deer rifles” during his Christmas flight. It has no lasting consequences, it simply acts as another example of bad kids. We ARE treated to a scene with him rinsing the bullet wound in his side with rubbing alcohol. In a different scene, he takes target practice on some cans. Still later, Santa-Mel works over a heavy bag in the barn. Ho Ho Ho. . .
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The whole military angle goes nowhere, except that the elves do a good job and Santa-Mel gets a check that makes everything better. You would think that having Santa’s elves making military hardware would have some sort of moral or payoff later on, but no. They just got paid.
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This movie has rather a high body count for a Santa Claus movie. I’m not sure even, “Die Hard”, another traditional Christmas movie, had a higher body count.
What the FUCK kind of brown-acid nightmare is this!? I don’t know what movie they thought they were making. Did anyone want a postmodern Santa story? A shitty assassin story with Santa? A black comedy, devoid of ALL comedy? It’s Fargo, with Santa and utterly without humor.
Good God, the entertainment wasteland caused by the COVID pandemic is an underappreciated side-effect of this disease. I can’t wait until the normal shitty stuff is back. The batshit crazy shitty stuff is wearing on me.