Thankfully, the new Director's Cut DVD affords us another legitimate reason to sing its praises; even in its third iteration on home video, the film still feels fresh, irreverent and invigorating, and proves that if nothing else, an embarrassment of riches is occasionally a good thing.
Over the past few decades, Christmas has slowly moved away from wholesome Christian family values and towards crass, dehumanizing commercialism - an idea of which Bad Santa is emblematic: Billy Bob Thornton (The Bad News Bears) plays Willie Stokes, a booze-soaked safecracker who converges on shopping malls to prey on department stores' holiday-season avarice. Aided by a foul-mouthed dwarf named Marcus (Tony Cox) who finds them annual gigs as Santa and his Elf, the pair score some quick cash at Christmas and devote the rest of the year to spending it. But after several years of repeating their scam, the depravity of this nomadic lifestyle is finally catching up to them; and when Willie inadvertently finds himself mentoring a chubby 8-year old (Brett Kelly), Willie begins to question if there isn't anything better out there than the worm at the end of a tequila bottle.
Though the film was released through Miramax subsidiary Dimension Pictures, the fact that parent company Disney agreed to release this film but not Michael Moore's decidedly tamer polemic Fahrenheit 9/11 speaks volumes about the relative value they place on politics and morality. That said, Bad Santa is significantly lighter on lessons learned than Moore's film, but it's also the only movie you'll see anytime soon in which a verbal exchange between an adult and a child is as filled with as many crude and hilarious obscenities as this one:
"What is it with you, anyway?" Thornton's character Willie T. Stokes asks. "Someone drop you on your f*cking head?"
"On my head?" asks the kid eagerly.
"Yeah, well what are they gonna do?" Willie retorts. "Drop you on somebody else's head?"
"How can they drop me onto my own head?" says the kid, not understanding at all the basic fact he is being insulted, infuriating Willie further in the process.
"No, not onto your own… God dammit! Are you f*cking with me?" (By now we're in hysterics, laughing at Thornton's vulgar exasperation.)
Of course, those egregious lapses in judgment are just what makes Zwigoff's movie such a hoot; originally conceived by the Coen brothers as a one-note joke fleshed out to feature length, screenwriters John Ficarra and John Requa made their character Willie a bastard for the history books, an "eating, drinking, sh*tting, f*cking Santa Claus" whose bad temper and problems with alcohol threaten to derail his part-time vocation as a con artist and safe cracker.
As mentioned above, there are currently three different versions of Bad Santa available: the 93-minute theatrical cut, the 98-minute Badder Santa (Unrated) edition, and the new 88-minute Director's Cut. In any case, what you're gaining or losing is hardly important enough to make a difference even to the most impatient viewer, since none of the versions are long and the movie moves like lightning. But the primary difference between the editions is their respective tones, which vary only by extremely modest degrees and in fact are quite difficult to distinguish on first viewing.
Only die-hard fans of the film (of whom there are a growing number) will take notice of the film's seven minute difference in the running times between the 'R' and unrated versions, with the exception of a sequence that contributes to Willie's solstice in Miami, where he steals a car, robs the owner's house, and blows the proceeds of his score on a stripper he tips with lotto cards. Other than that, the changes are subtle (a reference to another offensively-named hacker whose prodigious talents allegedly granted him access to Margaret Thatcher's bathing suit areas, etc.), or detached completely from the film itself and are instead included in the Badder Santa disc's "Special Features" section.
Meanwhile, the Director's Cut is by far the tightest of the three, and also the darkest - which may account for the delay in its release. This version completely excises the scene where Willie and Marcus teach Thurman to fight, and basically removes the more obvious elements of Willie's evolution to a, well, slightly less loathsome character. Also, the ending is different, cutting the coda where Thurman takes revenge on his tormentor and rides away offering a middle finger to his fallen adversary, and by extension an audience which has similarly sort of been beaten into submission. (There are other surprises but we won't spoil them here; suffice it to say that the film is more unrelenting and less emotional than in previous versions.)
Regardless, however, the film itself is the main attraction, especially for filmgoers sick of candy-coated holiday movies; Bad Santa delivers on the promise of its title with such force that scarcely does one have the energy to sit through more than the film's 88 minute running time - that is, until you see it for the fortieth time. So now if you'll excuse us, we're going to get back to watching Billy Bob be bad - but rest assured that if another edition arrives on DVD any time in the near future, we'll make sure to let you know how eagerly you should shell out some cash to be dropped onto your own head.
Score: 9 out of 10
The Video
Bad Santa is presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) preserving the aspect ratio of the theatrical exhibition. This transfer, like its predecessors, is solid but unspectacular: the color quality is strong, the focus is crisp and the overall cleanliness is consistent. Director Terry Zwigoff's direction is similarly unshowy, which renders this transfer accurate without trying to unnecessarily expand the scope of the picture on DVD. No matter which version you choose to watch, this film looks good; and if you have multiple editions there thankfully won't be any concession to a preferable transfer over a preferable cut of the film.
Score: 8 out of 10
The Audio
Only one audio option is available for viewing the Bad Santa (Director's Cut): English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. Thankfully, this is more than enough for the third version of this film on DVD, since the dialogue was changed little between different iterations. Specifically, the dialogue is focused in the center channel while sound effects and score circulates in the satellite speakers; because much of the music used for the film is classical music or otherwise holiday-themed tunes, the emphasis on an upbeat counterpoint to the action is not only appropriate but actually adds enjoyment to the movie. Overall this disc will more than get the job done in both video and audio capacities.
Spanish subtitles are available for hearing-impaired and multilingual audiences.
Score: 8 out of 10
Extras and Packaging
Bad Santa (Director's Cut) comes in a standard Amaray case with a paper insert featuring a plot synopsis, a list of bonus materials and technical information about the disc.
The single-disc Director's Cut DVD features the following extras:
- Audio commentary by director Terry Zwigoff and editor Robert Hoffman
- Deleted and alternate scenes
- Behind-the-scenes featurette
- Outtakes
The collection of deleted and alternate scenes is comprised of footage that already appeared on previous DVDs, but the footage is nevertheless welcome since it shows some of the material added into the theatrical and Unrated editions. The funniest of the four deleted scenes is the multiple-take montage of Billy Bob Thornton's responses to a security guard; even the crew is in stitches by the third or fourth take. Meanwhile, the outtake reel is similarly fun to watch, featuring a number of moments that were previously documented along with a few new ones for good measure.
This disc features the first and only commentary provided by the film's cast or crew, and it was worth the wait. Zwigoff says right up front that this is his cut and that he never expected to see this officially released, and then proceeds to discuss the process by which he assembled the film - in his own pace, with a tone faithful to his vision of the story. He indicates where changes were made - such as when Zwigoff discards the opening voiceover because he thought it was unnecessary and "poorly written" and basically chronicles the adverse reaction from test audiences; including comments from the reaction cards, the director and editor offer their complete and total disdain for the process of making movies by committee.
Score: 6 out of 10
The Bottom Line
Overall, this is such a dark, funny movie that we would watch just about any version that Buena Vista Home Entertainment produced, even if we're not so sure we'd actually pay for each new iteration. But at 88, 93 or 98 minutes, Bad Santa is a great movie, and offers a brilliant rejoinder to the conventional wisdom that Christmas films must be conventionally redeeming or even remotely commercial.