REVIEW: Violent Night, a Christmas film for action fans

A lot of children saw Home Alone in the 90s, and they’ve since grown up. Many of them may still enjoy the film for nostalgia’s sake, but family films aren’t always on the modern adult’s mind. They want more variety, like drama and action and romance from their Christmas movies. Violent Night is the Christmas movie for the grown up fan of Home Alone.

David Harbour and John Leguizamo in Violent Night, courtesy of Universal Pictures.

This film stars David Harbour (from Stranger Things and Black Widow) as old Kris Kringle himself. Santa Claus isn’t doing too well in this modern age where all kids want is cash or video games. He’s beginning to wonder if he should throw in the towel. But this latest Christmas Eve he finds himself delivering gifts in the rich, isolated household of the Lightstone family. But as he arrives down the chimney, several criminals put their plan into action to hold the family hostage and rob them of their hundreds of millions of dollars in the secret underground vault.

Harbour, no stranger to action, is fully at ease both with the dramatic tension of playing someone who’s ready to move past their long career, and the intense action of using Christmas ornaments against people armed with machine guns. He’s had a lengthy career mostly as a character actor, but over the past few years has been able to diversify and move into leading roles. He may be developing a type as action heroes who wear red (Red Guardian, Hellboy, now Santa Clause), and it’s certainly his colour.

But a lead actor can only be as good as the rest of their cast, and the rest of the cast is stellar here. Special praise must be given to his nemesis here, Mr. Scrooge (played by John Leguizamo from Romeo + Juliet and Encanto). As the Christmas-hating leader of the bad guys, he spews tons of evil and lacks in Christmas cheer. The hostages too are all fun to watch as well, especially Edi Patterson (from the Righteous Gemstones) as the rich alcoholic daughter, and Beverly D’Angelo (no stranger to Christmas films, having starred in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation) as the mother hiding her millions.

What the films understands best is how to deftly walk the line between a Christmas film (a movie that soaks in the tropes of Christmas, while also offering a moral related to the holiday) and intense action films (like Die Hard, which is distinctly not a Christmas film). It has that Christmas cheer that one desires when watching a movie about this time of year, as well as the thrills and kills that only intense action can provide. The film’s director, Norwegian Tommy Wirkola, is used to directing snowy action (having made zombie horror Dead Snow) and easily moves into the holly-jolly details of Christmas films here. When people tell you that Die Hard is a Christmas film, show them this instead. That way, they’ll learn the leaning of Christmas (and what a Christmas film actually is).

Easily mixing the joys of the holidays with bloody, gory joy, Violent Night is sure to be a classic of Christmas films alongside Krampus, Christmas Evil, and Black Christmas. This film get a 4/5, and you can watch it in cinemas now.