“Violent Night” stars David Harbour, John Leguizamo, and Beverly D’Angelo. It’s a weird mixture of one of those kitschy family-friendly Christmas movies where love is rekindled and the characters discover the real meaning of Christmas, and a violent action flick. It’s great fun.

David Harbour is the real Santa Claus, who has become so disillusioned by the increasing greed and selfishness of people that he doesn’t know why he’s even bothering to continue. So on this Christmas eve he’s getting increasingly drunk as he haphazardly continues to deliver presents, wondering if he should just give up. Meanwhile, estranged couple Jason and Linda go with their daughter Trudy to Jason’s mother’s mansion for Christmas.  It is unclear what the family business is, but it is very clear that the mother, Gertrude (Beverly D’Angelo) is ruthless and not exactly a loving and nurturing parent.

The mansion is infiltrated by criminals posing as the catering crew, killing the security guards and taking the family prisoner. At the same time, Santa has arrived and is enjoying the home made cookies little Trudy made for him, and helping himself to the family alcohol selection. He hears the ruckus, and decides to leave, as the problems of the world are not his. However his magic fails (probably due to the alcohol) and the reindeer, spooked by the gunfire, take off without him. Santa is at the mercy of the criminals.

There is a crazy and very entertaining merger of the kind of wholesome family coming together type story you might get on one of those Hallmark movies, and a brutal ‘Die Hard’ style action flick. It works, bringing the two styles together in a way that is a great deal of fun. David Harbour as Santa really steals the show – when he realises he can’t leave Trudy, one of the children on his dwindling ‘nice’ list, to be killed by the criminals, he must tap into his dark past in order to take out the bad guys. He is a very vulnerable and human Santa – he can be hurt, he can be killed, and while he has some magic powers they don’t include violence. The film gives him a past before he was Santa, when he was a warrior who was a very bad and violent person, very good at murder and mayhem. He never loses his ‘Santa’ persona in spite of the drama, telling off Trudy for using a bad word, and reminding some of the bad guys of the presents they received when they were young.

I found it very surprising that the cute kid, Trudy (played by Leah Brady), was actually cute, and not annoying like children usually are in these movies. One fun aspect of this is when she is hiding in the attic from the criminals and is about to be discovered. She sets up some booby traps, citing “Home Alone” for her inspiration. She has done this quite well, setting up an obvious trap in plain sight, so when the bad guy sneers at her stupidity he walks right into the second trap that was better hidden. Another aspect of this scene I found good was her apparent surprise that the bad guy is seriously injured. Of course, in “Home Alone” the criminals are somehow never badly hurt, and Trudy had a lesson about the difference between movies and real life.

The violence, in spite of the title, is not as extreme as expected. Many of the deaths are not seen up close and personal, but the action scenes are well-handled (the bad guys aren’t too easy to take down), allowing the audience to suspend disbelief and just enjoy. There are some gory moments, but only a few. The leader Scrooge (played by John Leguizamo) is a bizarre mix of dangerous and petulant, his comments about Christmas as a child hinting at deep-seated neurosis at the base of his behaviour. The batshit crazy Krampus (Brendan Fletcher) is one of the more cliché characters in the movie but makes up for it by the fact that he does pose a very real threat to the vulnerable family, as well as his demise being the butt of a joke about families doing things together.

The film isn’t as superficial as you might expect. Under all the goofy carnage there are a few messages about kindness, hope, love that has been lost being found again. There is a conversation between the grandmother and her son that is so morally skewed it immediately explains so much about the family problems. I found the family interactions interesting without being too over the top like you would see in some movies. Even the characters who are played for laughs, like the son in law with his action movie star ego, are not so broad as to be unbelievable.

The movie has some great choices in music. The cheery Christmas music played during some of the fight scenes are a hilarious choice due to their incongruity. Burl Ives’ ‘A holly jolly Christmas’ is funny due to its cheesiness, and ‘Merry Christmas everybody’ by Slade played over the closing credits (giving me nostalgic happy feelings!)

“Violent Night” is a funny comedy action movie. It’s not laugh-out-loud funny, more quietly amusing. The action is well realised and the violence is not too over the top. (Though this is not a movie for children!) For those who enjoy “Die Hard” and would like to watch something more obviously Christmassy but in the same vein, watch “Violent Night”. It’s great fun.