 Violent night. Holy shit. This was actually a pretty fun movie. David Harbour stars as Santa Claus, a John Wick Christmas-like adventure for some of the family to enjoy. Tis the season for giving, and in that spirit, I would appreciate if you gave me the gift of a subscription to the channel Adam Does Movies right here, as I post tons of movie content each and every week. I had a very fun time with Violent Night. It's not gonna be for everyone though, and I'm gonna tell you some of the things to expect without giving any spoilers out. For starters, I think many people would go into this movie assuming it's gonna be pretty stupid. We have the premise of an alcoholic Santa Claus drunk off his ass and doesn't care about Christmas anymore. He's about ready to hang up the coat when he unfortunately finds himself at the wrong place at the wrong time. As he drunkenly stumbles into a home where a family's being held hostage while a robbery takes place. That sounds awfully familiar. No, it's because it's pretty much the plot of Die Hard. But instead of Nakatomi Plaza, we have a very wealthy house. And instead of John McClain, we have Santa Claus. Everything else kind of falls into place, and this is no accident. Violent Night acknowledges Die Hard. It references it several times along with Home Alone and some other Christmas classics. Hell, it's even got Beverly DeAngelo in it. From Christmas Vacation, one of the greatest Christmas films of all time. She plays the owner of the establishment, Gertrude Lightstone. Lightstone sounds an awful lot like Gemstone, as in the Righteous Gemstones, which is a great TV show, featuring actress Eddie Patterson, who is a character in this film, playing her exact role from Righteous Gemstones. I point this out as both a pro and a con, as this movie definitely has the vibe of Righteous Gemstones, but none of the people working on it as far as I could tell in the writer department. So it almost feels like it's kind of ripping stuff off left and right. Doesn't really have a lot of its own identity and play. The family as a whole, I think is probably the weakest part of this film. No, it definitely is the weakest part. There's a relationship on the rocks. There's a social media influencer kid. There's the bratty heiress to the fortune. Like all these characters are okay in small doses, but unfortunately they have too much screen time and they're not near as compelling as say the family from Knives Out. No, this show is easily at its best when Santa Claus comes to town, checks out the naughty list, starts taking these bitches out. His weapon of choice is a little weird. Not something I would expect from a Santa Claus action film. It's a sludge hammer. And man, does he use this thing to great effect, breaking bones, smashing heads in, and they show a lot of it. This is a very violent night indeed. Lot of CG fake blood. I mean, these people get pricked with a pen and blood just oozes out of them. It's very over the top, but in a fun way. And thankfully, violent night does deliver on the action. There is a lot of it. It's creative, it's a joy to watch. And easily the best part is a home alone reenactment section with a little girl trying her best to be Kevin McAllister. And she's succeeding. Such a fun sequence that I wanted the whole movie to be this way. The girl I'm referring to is Trudy Lightstone. She's on the good list, believes in Santa, just an all around great kid. And her relationship with him is very akin once more to Die Hard. She's on the walkie-talkie chatting with him, trying to figure out the next move. And overall, that stuff is really well done. Now what this movie's lacking that Die Hard absolutely knocks out of the park is the villain. We have John Liguizamo here playing Scrooge. I thought for sure he was gonna kill it in the role, but as it stands, he's just not that great. Which is a disappointment. I was really looking forward to him as the villain being very over the top, but he's the most serious one in the mix. When you're in a film with over the top larger than life characters, you gotta make your villain match. Otherwise, he just feels like he's out of place. Which Liguizamo did. I cannot overstate how stupid this movie is. And because it is so stupid, it's hard to get annoyed by things not making any sense. And I'm not talking about the magic. Of course Christmas magic, whatever, that's fine. But there are scenes, multiple scenes, where characters will be in a room, you expect them to do something and then they're just gone from the scene. It just ends. It's far too convenient. Or there's guns pointed at one of the villains and instead of engaging the person, they just do some hand-to-hand fighting for no reason at all. Obviously I looked past it. I was entertained by the movie. The only other negative I would give is some of the writing feels like it was done five years ago. For instance, Liguizamo's character at one point says, happy holidays or do we say Christmas again? I'm paraphrasing, but it's very similar to that. And I'm just thinking like, this is still a thing people are talking about. The film looks great. It's clearly lower budget. The whole movie takes place at one central location. You're going nowhere else in this thing. So for the hour 45 or whatever this ended up being, it runs well. It looks good. Some of the music is very playful. It really matches the tone of the scene that's going on. I dug it. I dug it. This is a good time. And again, it's not going to be for everyone. It's very, very stupid. But I like stupid. Well, that's Violent Night. Let me know if you saw it in the comments below. I would love to hear from you. Again, give me the gift of a subscription. I would appreciate it. And hopefully, see you next time. Some of those hammer shots are great. He pulls that thing up, throws it. It's the guy in the back of the head, pulls it up, kicks it into a guy's chin, goes over the top of it. It's good stuff. There's other videos. I'm just standing here while that has a chance to populate, propagate.