"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Tuesday, June 12, 2018

Countdown to Thirteen: Get Santa (2014, PG)


This movie wasn’t as bad as I was expecting, which sounds like faint praise but I do mean it sincerely.  It’s a decent enough little holiday family film, not something I’d be likely to watch without the incentive of the actors in it, but mostly fine for what it is.

The recently-incarcerated Steve, paroled just before Christmas, is anxious to reconnect with his son Tom after two years behind bars.  However, a wrench is thrown into their Christmas Eve plans when Santa Claus himself – Tom is convinced, Steve’s not so sure – entreats them for help.  Santa’s new sleigh crashed during a test drive, and his efforts to recover his reindeer got him arrested for trespassing.  Now locked up in the same prison Steve was in, Santa is asking for no simple task:  find the reindeer, fix the sleigh, and bust Santa out of jail, all in time for the man in red to make his rounds before Christmas day.

It shouldn’t surprise you to know there’s corniness aplenty (not to mention more reindeer fart jokes than are strictly necessary.)  Some kids’ movies are amazing and others are painful to sit through, but this one is neither – it’s decidedly so-so.  Still, its heart is mainly in the right place, it’s nicely anchored by the uneasy relationship between father and son, and the humor can be unexpectedly sly in places.  I got a genuine laugh when a cop, who, for plot reasons, wound up being left tied up and unconscious in a van, wakes up to the well-intentioned note, “Sorry about this – trying to save Christmas.”

There’s also a pretty good cast overall, most notably Jim Broadbent as a pitch-perfect Santa.  The cast additionally includes The Thick of It’s Joanna Scanlan, Stephen Graham (who played MacMaster in Parade’s End,) and Warwick Davis – it’s virtually inevitable that you’ll find actors with dwarfism in a Christmas movie, but in this case, he’s more like Peter Dinklage in Elf, a little person who has the misfortune to cross paths with someone actually from the North Pole.

Side note – another aspect of the film I like is how it portrays inmates and parolees.  Steve is definitely a criminal, but rather than being an inherent “bad seed,” it stems from a colossally-poor decision that he’s trying to make up for.  And while Santa is harassed by other prisoners when he first arrives and is urged to adopt a tougher persona to get by on the inside, the inmates are pleased when they learn of his “Santa impression,” as they’re planning a Christmas Eve party for their visiting families and want to do it up right.  By and large, they’re depicted as people, not walking representatives of their crimes.

Where the film disappoints me, more than any schmaltzy cheeseball moment or stupid fart joke could, is in Jodie Whittaker’s character Alison.  Steve’s ex-wife and Tom’s mom, Alison is given wildly-unsympathetic treatment on behalf of the film.  Keep in mind that she’s justifiably wary of her recently-paroled, unreliable ex taking their son out for the day – she’s worried about Tom’s emotional well-being and doesn’t want his dad to let him down.  Then, when Steve seemingly absconds with Tom (on a secret mission from Santa, unbeknownst to Alison,) that wariness pushes into panic.

It’s entirely reasonable for Alison to be freaked, upset, and hellbent on getting Tom away from Steve, given her understanding of the situation.  But because we know what’s really going on, the movie doesn’t frame it that way, and Alison becomes the hard-nosed shrew with no sense of the magic of Christmas who won’t give decent-guy Steve a break.  It’s really disheartening to see.

Accent Watch

A decent-sounding RP.

Recommend?

In General – A cautious maybe.  If you’re in the right holiday mood, it’s decent enough, especially the actual Santa-in-jail scenes.

Jodie Whittaker – No.  I really dislike what they do with her character here.

Warnings

Thematic elements and gross-out humor.

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