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Bad Santa
You'd better watch out - Willie T. Soke is coming to town, and he doesn't care if you've been naughty or nice. Willie's favorite holiday tradition is to fill his sacks with loot lifted from shopping malls across the country. But this year his plot gets derailed by a wisecracking store detective, a sexy bartender, and a kid who's convinced Willie is the real Santa Claus.
2003 · Directed by Terry Zwigoff · 92 min · Drama · Comedy · Crime · Screenplay in the scene database · 16 frames
Tagline
He doesn't care if you're naughty or nice.
Plot
Willie T. Soke and his dwarf assistant Marcus Skidmore are professional thieves. Every year, Willie gets a job as a department store Santa Claus and Marcus as an elf to rob shopping malls on the night of Christmas Eve, with Marcus' wife Lois as their getaway driver. Marcus takes his job seriously, but Willie, a sex-addicted cursing alcoholic and drug addict, is steadily unable to perform with children.
When they are hired at the Saguaro Square Mall in Phoenix, Willie's vulgarity shocks the prudish mall manager Bob Chipeska, who brings them to the attention of security chief Gin Slagel. At the mall, Willie is visited by Thurman Merman, a friendly but exceedingly gullible, dimwitted young boy who believes he really is Santa and is constantly bullied by a teenage gang of skateboarders. At a bar, Willie meets Sue, a bartender with a fetish for Santa Claus, and they begin a sexual relationship.
After having casual sex with Sue in his beaten-up Impala, Willie is harassed and attacked by a man he had encountered earlier at the bar, but Thurman intervenes. Willie gives the boy a ride home, where he lives with his senile grandmother. Thurman reveals that his mother died and claims his father, Roger, is out "exploring the mountains" (though he is actually in jail for embezzlement). Willie tricks him into letting him rob their safe and steals Roger's BMW 740iL.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Written by: John Requa, Glenn Ficarra
- Cinematography: Jamie Anderson
- Edited by: Robert Hoffman
- Music: David Kitay
- Production design: Sharon Seymour
- Produced by: John Cameron, Sarah Aubrey, Bob Weinstein
Cast
- Billy Bob Thornton as Willie
- Tony Cox as Marcus
- Lauren Graham as Sue
- Brett Kelly as The Kid
- Lauren Tom as Lois
- John Ritter as Bob Chipeska
- Bernie Mac as Gin
- Ajay Naidu as Hindustani Troublemaker
- Alex Borstein as Milwaukee Mom with Photo
- Lorna Scott as Milwaukee Mother
Production
- Country: United States of America, Germany
- Language: English
- Studios: Mike Zoss Productions, Triptych Pictures, Dimension Films, Miramax
- Budget: $23,000,000
- Box office: $76,500,000
- Themes: elves, holiday, department store, christmas party, safe, drink, little people, christmas, hilarious, xmas
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