Regie:
Tommy WirkolaCamera:
Matthew WestonMuziek:
Dominic LewisActeurs:
David Harbour, John Leguizamo, Alex Hassell, Alexis Louder, Cam Gigandet, Edi Patterson, Beverly D'Angelo, Leah Brady, Alexander Elliot, Brendan Fletcher (meer)Streaming (2)
Samenvattingen(1)
Een team huurlingen breekt op kerstavond in bij een rijke familie en neemt iedereen in huis in gijzeling. Maar ze hebben niet gerekend op de aanwezigheid van de kerstman, gespeeld door David Harbour. Ze komen er snel achter dat de lieve kindervriend ook een heel andere kant heeft. (Pathé)
Video's (6)
Recensie (11)
Yippee ki-yay ho-ho-ho, motherfucker! When the special unit began their demolition with a sledgehammer during Bryan Adams' "Christmas Time," I was torn between envying Tommy Wirkola's arrested adolescence or criticizing it. He once again revealed his fondness for hobby store goods, especially various tools, but with the same passion, he might want to start focusing on characters. The invocation of family values often puts the brakes on things, but I understand, it's Christmas. Although David Harbour, playing the role with a Hellboy-like approach, gave it his all, I believe Bad Santa Billy Bob Thornton would still outshine him. Of course, I mean that figuratively...
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Seasons Beatings! A beautiful film. Exactly one of those movies that highlights why I love movies. Tommy Wirkola reaffirms his status as a tough butcher off the rails and has quite possibly made one of his best films; at the very least he made a film that has the potential to become a Christmas classic and will definitely not be missing in my living room every Christmas in the future. Of course, for the introverts, weirdo entities, puritans and outcasts of society, this will be and American piece of shit without a story that is unnecessarily filthy and brutal, and I'm glad that the code of decency suffered incredibly in the process, I really enjoy torturing this bunch like this, probably like David Harbour, who played the best role of his career. Violent Night is one crazy, fun, perverse and brutal action ride that takes Christmas traditions, John Wick-like action, twisted humour and references to Home Alone and together it works incredibly well and cool. The story may be simple, but there's beauty in simplicity, and all the other filmmaking aspects and details are important; the work they have put in is very evident and I appreciate it accordingly. Apart from the excellent Harbour, for whom this was a tailor-made role (his flashback was also awesome, by the way, and I hope we will learn even more about him in the eventual sequel), the villains are also a delight, John Leguizamo plays a surprisingly decent bad guy, but his henchmen also have their bit of glory, and I looked forward to every disposal, which are brimming with original and entertaining ideas. I was sure of a decent 4 stars, but once it came to the barn scene, it was a done deal. It was such a carnage!!! Santa, with a skullcracker and skates for knives, performs the Christmas ballet of death, and for me it is without a doubt one of the best scenes I have seen this year. I'll be playing this before bed every night. This whole glorious sequence is then built up with traps like in Home Alone, and I was roaring with laughter and joy. I'm glad Wirkola put something like that, those were two top notch sequences (read orgasm) right after each other. The Christmas music was good too and of course I couldn't fail to mention the properly twisted and bawdy humour, which was perfectly fitting. The emotions worked on me at times thanks to the cute little girl and there were a few minor twists and turns, so very satisfied. A properly entertaining, crazy and brutal film like this year's Bullet Train. 9/10
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David Harbour is half of the film. He was made to play the role of a kind-hearted Santa Claus with the roots of a bad-ass Viking. The mixing of motifs from Die Hard and Home Alone, which are Christmas cult classics in America, is the right way to join their ranks in different genre garb. Wirkola almost succeeded – he combines Christmas clichés with new ideas, the endangered family members are not cliches and the narrative flows nicely. It’s just a shame that Harbour doesn’t face any correspondingly interesting bad guys for whom we would have more respect.
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A gang of killers decide to ruin Christmas for a dysfunctional family and only Santa Claus can save them, and the chubby bearded guy is definitely not afraid of violence. Tommy Wirkola may be a little slow to get going in his actioner, and maybe he plays a little too much with genres and Christmas clichés, but he manages to shift into the mode we love him in time. David Harbour is clearly in his element here, the action sequences are full of ideas and clearly shot, the humour is pitch black and the references to Home Alone and Die Hard are a delight too.
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In the golden age of Hong Kong cinema, when several dozen action films vied for viewers’ attention every year, the rule was that the way to distinguish one’s film from those of the competition was to include previously unseen attractions, or at least a unique screenplay, setting and overall visual or subgenre stylization. The filmmakers from 87North Productions consciously follow the Hong Kong tradition in many respects. Unfortunately, however, over the four years since they stopped being mere subcontractors providing choreography for action scenes and started producing movies themselves, they have reached a point where, instead of amazement and excitement, their films evoke only a superficially altered impression of something that has already been seen. This was inevitable, because unlike in the case of the major productions from the golden age of Hong Kong cinema, they have nowhere to grow. On the one hand, they have no competition, but no one will entrust them with bigger budgets that would enable them to further develop. Furthermore, they don’t have any stars other than Keanu Reeves who would devote themselves to the action genre, work on themselves and continually impress viewers with new stunts. On the other hand, it didn’t matter that Nobody is a variation on John Wick, because the film was carried by the excellent Bob Odenkirk. The same was true of Kate in relation to Atomic Blonde thanks to Mary Elizabeth Winstead and the pop-Japanese stylisation. Not to mention that in both of these cases the choreography worked with real physical aspects and a specific setting. But Violent Night not only comes across in its choreography as a derivative of the same company’s previous films, but the thing that is supposed to make it different is in itself derivative. The whole film blatantly paraphrases Home Alone and Die Hard, this time with Santa Claus himself battling the highly capable bad guys. Unfortunately, in practice this is all reduced to the insipid juvenile attraction of Santa cursing with a broken nose and a blood-soaked beard through most of the film. Of course, he also uses Christmas items like tree ornaments to eliminate his enemies. However, the film peculiarly comes most alive when it dispenses with the would-be shocking of American viewers stupefied by the illusion of Christmas and moves to the attic in the manner of Home Alone and to the tool shed in the style of Commando. But even these flashes of inventiveness (though still derivative) cannot obscure the desperate fact that David Harbour doesn’t have the charisma to carry an entire film on his own and that Tommy Wirkola is a master of gimmick movies whose final execution falls far short of the promise of their catchy concepts.
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