365 Days. 365 Films.

Billy Bob Thornton is Willie, a drunk and a criminal who earns money over the holidays playing Santa in malls for the children while hatching plans with his friend to rob the stores they work alongside. One day at work he meets a young boy who, despite Willie’s drunken and slightly abusive behaviour towards him, idolizes him and believes him to be the real Santa. When Willie realises that the police are after him, he moves in to the young boy’s house where he is living with only a senile grandmother.

The concept for this film is great but I thought they could have done a lot more with it, or sometimes less with the comedy. I thought the jokes may have gone too far sometimes and it distracted from what it should have been. I realise that Billy Bob Thornton probably enjoyed playing this role and that he was the only man for it, but I did expect the character to be a little more like Bill Murray’s Scrooged character, especially in how he acts towards children. Instead it was sad and sometimes distasteful and it rarely got a laugh out of me, however it is a nice and refreshing take on the standard Christmas movie narrative.