Bad Santa 2

Mark Waters’ Bad Santa 2 is the sequel to Terry Zwigoff’s seasonal black comedy Bad Santa (2003). The film sees the return of Billy Bob Thornton as the volatile alcoholic Willie and Tony Cox as his devious partner-in-crime Marcus. In this story Willie returns to his life of crime, going undercover as a Santa in order to crack the safe of a charity organisation in Chicago. Joining Willie and Marcus in their operation is Willie’s cheery but abusive mother Sunny (Kathy Bates).

Probably the most upsetting thing about the picture comes early on with its premise. The story is about Willie teaming up with his partner from the first movie, donning a Santa suit and going undercover with the objective of cracking a safe – alcoholic and sexual hijinks ensue. While it’s not necessarily a bad thing for a sequel to mimic ideas from its predecessor, the events of the first film are justification as to why this particular narrative should not have been repeated; at least with the way it has been told.

The first film showed Willie doing bad things and having deliberately unlikeable qualities, but it still made the audience care for the character. At first he exploits the naïve child Thurman (Brett Kelly) for food and shelter, but he develops a bond with the boy and learns kindness. He gets into a relationship that is pretty much based on sex, but as things progress the relationship also gains qualities like emotional attachment and support, and the two become almost like parents to Thurman – in fact, Sue (Lauren Graham) is given legal guardianship over Thurman at the end. And while Willie goes through with the plan to rob the mall, he still is overtaken by the spirit of Christmas and second-guesses himself. Yes, one could argue that it may be naïve to think a character as volatile as Willie could have completely happy endings, at least not without some conflict along the way, and Willie does not necessarily change who he is even though he learns good lessons by the end. But when the sequel drops just about all of the resolution from the first film, it erases the lessons that the protagonist was supposed to learn. He teams up with the man who tried to kill him at the end of the first film! The audience is given a sense that their investment in the character’s arc in the first film was for naught, so their investment in him in the sequel is lessened. Even if he gets a happy ending by the end of the film, there’s no reason to believe it won’t be undone in a vicious cycle.

At first the humour has a shaky start, but it picks up about twenty minutes or so into the picture. It seems apparent that the creative team has changed, not only from different directing, but also the writing, with Johnny Rosenthal and Shauna Cross taking over from Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. It can be difficult for a creative team to follow on from others who have set a standard, and it definitely shows here. Visually, the cinematography, style and editing noticeably contrasts from that of the first film. And on the subject of humour, the style of writing lacks the flare of the original or tries to incorporate a lighter style into it. It’s all out of place.

The story lacks an arc. There are subplots, like Willie’s pursuit of his carnal desires for Diane (Christina Hendricks) and his relationship with his mother Sunny, but there’s no complexity or moral to the story. It’s just the guy reluctantly trying to achieve an objective and doing what he can to distract from his misery in the meantime. There’s a human moment here and there but nothing that wasn’t already learned in the first film. At one point Willie references something his ex Sue used to do in the original, and it could have been a good turning point – if anything it shows he is nostalgic about her – but it doesn’t go anywhere. The stakes and the scale of the objective are smaller, so it’s something of a weak follow-up. And there’s the aforementioned issue of audience investment, also a problem with the writing.

The characterisation of our main characters tries to be as close to the original as possible, and the actors Thornton and Cox portray them as they have before. However, in some examples, that’s not always a necessarily good thing. Brett Kelly returns as the overly optimistic and talkative Thurman Merman. Now, we understand how audiences can react to change regarding child actors; children grow up, their looks and voices change, and sometimes audiences can feel unused to it. For some, that could be part of the problem regarding the grown up Thurman, but it’s not the main issue. One could argue that Thurman being a child was an important part of his character, but his character also fit being a child. Even when the character becomes older, the character is written in a way that tries to replicate his childlike state, and not as well as they might have hoped, resulting in Thurman going from a sweet but naïve boy to a sweet but bumbling idiot. He’s basically Zach Galifianakis from Todd Phillips’ The Hangover trilogy (2009-2013), or more accurately Louis Lombardi from Frank Miller’s The Spirit (2008).

Introduced as the new “love interest” is Christina Hendricks as Diane, the beautiful redhead who runs the charity. The character is introduced as trusting, kindly, and blissfully unaware of Willie’s intentions both towards the charity and towards her. She is also supposedly represented with a lot of self respect and contrasts from most of the other women in the other film whom either Willie treats like eye candy or who fall into his lap (or one of several other possible positions). Long story short, the subplot with her is resolved way too easily, even if it is supposed to be comedic. The director and writers try to make Kathy Bates’ character an outrageous one with her double-life persona and vulgar nickname for her son, but the reveal of her persona is rather underwhelming and the use of the nickname is extremely repetitive.

Overall, Bad Santa 2 is average if not slightly below; its visual design and production value is admirable, it has its funny moments and tries in some regards to be a worthy sequel. That said, its writing is weak and the film suffers for it. It’s not as good as the first one, and, honestly, it doesn’t have a reason to exist.