Violent Night (2022)

Violent Night (2022)

 6/10

Starring

David Harbour

John Leguizamo

Alex Hassekk

 

Directed by Tommy Wirkola

 

The movie is not great, but it is not totally bad. The movie is a Die Hard copy and in Die Hard we had John McClane (Bruce Willis) at a Christmas party but at the wrong time as it was taken over by armed robbers who came to steal bonds from a vault. In this here movie we have Santa Claus (David Harbour), the real Santa Claus so the movie does have fantasy in its genre. In this action-comedy Die Hard remake, Santa Claus is at a Christmas party but at the wrong time as it was taken over by armed robbers who came to steal money from a vault while he just came by to drop presents while everyone was busy.

Like Die Hard the vault is not something you can just break into, so the criminal mastermind just like the one in Die Hard came prepared for any potential hiccup. One thing he was not prepared for was John McClane, oh sorry!!! In this movie Santa Claus.

Just like Die Hard Santa is alone and must take on the bad guys to save the day and every one of the family members who are under this calamity. The movie does not even make any attempt to be different just follows the format but does some fantasy tweaking in the end. I also liked the idea that Santa was not an indestructible character. His character had the ability to be mortally wounded.

The movie plot is about a very odd greedy family called the Lightstones. It is primary controller and matriarch of the family is Gertrude who makes her two children fight for her love and money.

On Christmas eve, the family is meeting for a Christmas party and Santa is having one of those days having to deal with the ungrateful children of the world. We see Santa drinking away his misery in a bar, before heading off to deliver the rest of the presents. He goes to the Lightstone resident to drop the gift for the one good girl in the resident when the place gets hijacked by armed robbers. They are led by a man who calls himself Mr. Scrooge. Scrooge knows everything about the Lightstones and he killed everyone in the premises except the family holding them hostage. Santa sees the chaos and wants to flee the madness when he saw the fear in a little girl’s eyes the grandchild of Gertrude and he decided to help. It was his going back to save the family that we get to see Santa kick ass and kill some of the bad guys to try and save the family.

I enjoyed this movie more than I should and I think it is because I love Die Hard so much and enjoyed the Home Alone gimmicks. But recommending this movie is not something I can say with a clear heart, so watch at your own risk.