VIOLENT NIGHT : Tuesday 13th December 2022.

To get myself into the Christmas spirit, I saw the MA15+ Rated 'VIOLENT NIGHT' this week. This American Christmas fantasy black comedy action film is Directed by Tommy Wirkola whose previous feature film making offerings include 'Dead Snow' in 2009, 'Hansel & Gretel : Witch Hunters' in 2013, 'Dead Snow 2 : Red vs. Dead' in 2014, 'What Happened to Monday' in 2017 with Noomi Rapace, Glenn Close and Willem Dafoe, and 'The Trip' in 2021 with Noomi Rapace again. This film saw its World Premiere at the New York Comic Con on 7th October and was released here in Australia and the US on the 1st and 2nd December respectively. It cost US$20M to produce, has so far grossed US$46M and has generated largely positive reviews.

The films opens up on Christmas Eve in a pub somewhere in Bristol, England, with Santa Claus (David Harbour) sat at the bar lamenting the fact that children have become increasingly materialistic, and increasingly unaware that he actually does exist. He's chatting to the barmaid and another (faux) Santa Claus who has just come of his shift, when he decides to leave saying that he still has much work to do but seriously under the influence of a few too many pints of beer. He goes up to the roof of the bar and there waiting for him is his sleigh and reindeer. As he takes off the barmaid appears on the roof to see Santa circling above, when he vomits over the side of his sleigh right on to the upturned barmaids face. 

In Greenwich, Connecticut, Jason Lightstone (Alex Hassell), his separated wife Linda Matthews (Alexis Louder), and their daughter Trudy (Leah Brady) visit his mother Gertrude's (Beverly D'Angelo) mansion set in its own gated community to celebrate Christmas with his alcoholic sister Alva (Edi Patterson), her new boyfriend and wannabe-action movie star Morgan Steel (Can Gigandet), and Alva's online influencer young teenage son Bertrude (Alexander Elliot). 

Following a somewhat frosty and strained Christmas Eve reception Jason and Linda take Trudy to bed, but Linda berates her estranged husband for not taking their daughter to the Mall this year to see Santa, so how can he know what presents to bring her. Jason asks for five minutes while he goes down to the games room, and rummages through a cupboard containing their old games and toys. He returns minutes later with an old walkie talkie for Trudy to talk directly to Santa, but for her to be mindful that he may be too busy to reply. They bid their daughter goodnight, and listen in at the door as Trudy asks Santa for just one wish - for the family to get back together again.

Continuing his journey to deliver Christmas gifts, a somewhat drunken Santa eventually arrives at the Lightstone estate. Parking his sleigh and reindeer on the roof of the mansion, he descends down the chimney stack and is greeted by a glass of skimmed milk and home baked cookies. He takes one sip of the milk and instantly discards it, helping himself instead to an aged whiskey from the bar in which he finds himself whilst chomping down on the cookies. The caterer's meanwhile, hired to lay on a lavish food and beverage spread for the evening, reveal themselves to be a group of highly trained and motivated mercenaries led by one Mr. Scrooge (John Leguizamo), who set about killing the household staff and taking the family hostage. Santa is discovered by one of the mercenaries, whose rapid gunfire through the ceiling scares away the reindeer. The pair fight until Santa knocks him out of a window to his death. Stranded, Santa decides to save Trudy and her family from Scrooge, who demands the US$300M in cash that is sitting in the mansion's vault. Santa gets into another fight and kills another henchman and takes his radio, coming across Trudy's channel, and finds the mercenaries on his magical naughty scroll. 

Trudy's walkie-talkie is later  discovered, and Jason tells their captors for fear of him being tortured that she is simply playing make-believe and declares that Santa is not real, causing her to run and hide in the attic. Santa reassures Trudy over the radio that he is indeed real, and revealing that he was once Nikamund the Red, a bloodthirsty Viking warrior, and how he now finds solace in his thousand plus years of marriage to Mrs. Claus. One of the henchman, Krampus (Brendan Fletcher), forces the family to hand out their gifts to Gertrude, who is surprised by a card from Jason, and keeps his message to herself choosing not to share his words with Alva. Wounded, Santa is captured by Scrooge, who bears a childhood grudge from when he was ten or eleven, against Christmas. Santa's knowledge of their real identities convinces two other lead mercenaries Gingerbread (Andre Eriksen) and Candy Cane (Mitra Suri) that he is real, and he uses his magic to escape up through the chimney.

Gertrude's private extraction team, also known as her own private 'kill squad', arrive, led by Commander Thorp (Mike Dopud), but they are in cahoots with Scrooge and kill Morgan as he attempted to escape. Opening up the vault, Scrooge and Thorp discover it empty. In turn Scrooge threatens Linda, and Jason confesses that he stole the money and was planning to flee with his wife and daughter, which he explained in his Christmas card to his mother. He reveals the money hidden in a nativity scene outside in the grounds. Gertrude forgives his treason as a family rite of passage. Retreating to a shed, Santa finds a sledgehammer and one by one brutally slaughters the kill squad. Trudy creates booby traps inspired by the 'Home Alone' film which she saw the previous day, which leads to Gingerbread's death, and as Candy Cane prepares to shoot Trudy, she is killed by Santa. Scrooge gives the order to kill the hostages, but Alva, Linda, and Bert manage to kill Krampus instead by beating him to death with fireside tools and stabbing him through the neck with a poker. 

Scrooge and Thorp flee into the woods on snow-mobiles with the bags containing the money and a captive Gertrude, chased down by Santa. Linda kills the last mercenary back at the nativity scene, and Trudy sees her parents reunite with a kiss. Lured by Scrooge, Santa crashes his snow-mobile into a cabin, and Scrooge finds himself on the naughty list and acknowledges Santa is real, but is determined to kill him and put an end to Christmas once and for all. They fight, and Scrooge gains the upper hand, but Santa uses his magic to drag him up the cabin's chimney stack, crushing and eviscerating Scrooge.

Santa is shot several times by Thorp, who is in turn shot through the head by Gertrude. As Santa lies dying in the snow, he remarks that he feels cold for the first time in a very long time. Jason burns a few hundred thousand dollars of the cash to keep him warm much to Alva's disgust, but Santa falls victim to his wounds. Trudy inspires her family to all declare their new found belief in Santa, and he is revived, admitting that he still does not really understand how Christmas magic works. His reindeer return, and Santa bids farewell to Trudy before flying off to finish delivering gifts, his faith in the spirit of Christmas restored.

I have to say that going into this movie my expectations were not particularly high, but I was pleasantly surprised by 'Violent Night' and the lashings of comedy, interwoven with over the top action and violence and bloodthirsty horror that make for a more than satisfying antidote to all the festive fun and frolics. David Harbour as a sledgehammer wielding Santa whose heart is firmly in the right place is perfectly cast, and John Leguizamo as Scrooge is sufficiently over the top as the villain in the piece who ultimately gets his comeuppance in the most gruesome of ways. This film doesn't add anything new to the genre that we haven't already seen in 1990's 'Home Alone' and 'Die Hard 2 : Die Harder' films, but for a bone crunching blood soaked tongue in cheek alternative Christmas offering that is a morality story at heart, you can add this to your Christmas stocking wish list and be entertained. 

'Violent Night' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

DANGEROUS LIES : Monday 4th May 2020.

In these very trying and testing times for us all that has seen many cinema's, Odeon's, and movie theatres around the world close their doors for the foreseeable future because of the escalating threat of the COVID-19 Coronavirus taking an ever increasing hold on the world at large, many film and television productions halted in their tracks indefinitely, and new film releases pushed back to some future date when some sense of movie going normalcy is expected to resume, I have, needless to say, had to adapt to this new world order. And so with my usual Reviews of the latest cinematic releases being curtailed, instead I will post my Review of the latest release movies showing on Netflix until such time as the regular outing to my local multiplex or independent theatre can be reinstated.

In the last few weeks then, a number of new feature films have landed at Netflix - of which I review as below 'Dangerous Lies' which went live on the streaming service on 30th April and which I saw from the comfort of my own home on Monday 4th May.

'DANGEROUS LIES' is Directed and Co-Produced by Michael M. Scott in his feature film debut, although this is his 54th Directorial outing and his 24th Producer credit after numerous made for TV movies and series over the years dating back to 1983. This film has garnered generally mixed or average reviews, has a fairly brisk running time of 96 minutes, although it does play out rather like a made for TV movie rather than a fully fledged feature film.

Katie Franklin (Camila Mendes) and Adam Kettner (Jessie T. Usher) are a young married couple who are struggling to make ends meet as Katie works in a diner to earn a crust to pay off their seemingly ever mounting debt burden, while Adam is studying for his final exams that he hopes will set him up on a pathway to a successful well paid career. The opening scene shows Adam saving Katie's boss in an armed robbery at the Smile Diner where she works as a waitress, by rendering the assailant unconscious with a frying pan.

Fast forward four months after the dust has settled on the armed robbery and Katie has been hired as a carer for Leonard Wellesley (Elliott Gould) - an 88 year old wealthy single man who lives alone in a grand old house in an upmarket suburb of Chicago. Over the months Leonard has formed an attachment to Katie, and has come to value her daily visits and considers her a true friend. Their relationship is built on a mutual respect for each other, trust and responsibility. Leonard has no family, has lived in the house his whole life and has lived alone for the past thirty years since his parents died. He tells Katie in passing one day that he often hears footsteps and strange noises in the house at night, but she dismisses this. 

One day Katie opens up to Leonard about her financial woes. He responds saying that he can help her out with money, and that he has some tucked away and who else is he going to help out if he can't support a young married couple just starting out in life. Katie refuses Leonard's kind offer, and asks him to offer Adam a job instead as a gardener, when he tells her that he had a gardener a couple of years back who came and went within two weeks and was never heard from again. Adam is quickly hired to tend to the garden and mow the lawns but to keep himself scarce from the main house. A rather pushy Real Estate Agent Mickey Hayden (Cam Gigandet) comes knocking on the door and says that he has a client who has his heart set on the house, and asks to see the owner. Katie explains that the house is not for sale. Unknown to the pair, Hayden starts following them as they go about their daily business.    

Shortly after, Leonard's writes out his pay cheque for Katie sealing it up in an envelope. Upon opening the cheque before depositing it in the bank she discovers that it is made out for US$7,000. Katie is reluctant to accept it, but Adam convinces her to use the cheque to pay the already overdue bills that are due today, and pay the rest back to Leonard tomorrow, thinking that he mistakenly made the cheque out for seven thousand instead of seven hundred dollars. The next day, they arrive at Leonard's home to find him dead in his chair in the attic while listening to his old records that his parents used to play when he was younger. Before calling the authorities Adam searches through an old trunk that contains some keepsakes from Leonard's past. He also uncovers a false bottom to the trunk, and underneath finds a stash of bank notes. They call the authorities but leave the cash concealed where they found it. Later, Adam wants to take the money, after all Leonard had no family, no relatives, so who's to know? Katie is reluctant but agrees. As Adam enters the house to collect the money, he is knocked unconscious from behind by a mystery intruder, who doesn't find the cash. So they drive to the bank with close to US$100,000 in bank notes and place it into a safety deposit box.

At Leonard's funeral, which is attended by Katie and Adam only, in walks Julia Byron-Kim (Jamie Chung) who say she is Leonard's appointed lawyer who tells them about his will. Back at the house Julia advises that Katie has been left everything and hands over an official looking Last Will and Testament document as proof. The couple are both shocked and overjoyed by this sudden windfall.

Subsequently they pack up their old apartment and move into the house. Katie is reluctant to accept the inheritance, and over dinner Adam announces that he is already planning new cars for them both, a month long holiday, all the trappings of their new found wealth and splitting up their cash reserves into various bank accounts to minimise their tax implications.

Settling in to their new home, one day Hayden reappears unannounced and states again that he has a buyer who really has his heart set on the house and that money is no object. He threatens Katie, insisting that he must buy the house. She vehemently refuses and threatens to call the Police unless he leaves right now. When Adam returns from a fake phone call urging him to come to the Police Station to make a statement he tells Katie that he believes he is being followed. Katie draws the conclusion that it must be Hayden. Detective Chesler (Sasha Alexander) becomes suspicious of Adam and starts to investigate the circumstances surrounding Leonard’s death.

Later, when looking for Adam, Katie out of curiosity, ventures up to a dusty dark living space above the garage. Katie discovers a body, hidden out of view on a mezzanine, with uncashed cheques made payable to Leonard's former gardener who suddenly disappeared two years ago, Ethan Doyle, who had been shot and killed. A bag of diamonds which had become dislodged from the body falls at Katie's feet. She wants to call Detective Chesler, but Adam convinces her to keep the diamonds. He discards the decomposed body in the dead of night in a city dumpster and burns all evidence of Ethan's existence in the fireplace back at the house. However, over the next couple of days the body is uncovered, and Detective Chesler is called to the scene by the Police Officer in charge of the investigation because they found a faded old laundry ticket inside a back pack linking the body back to Leonard's address.

Detective Chesler has a private meeting with Katie suggesting that Adam and the shooter at the diner possibly knew each other. Katie's suspicions of Adam are heightened, especially after finding an empty bottle of pills that wasn't accounted for in her logbook of Leonard’s daily medications. She meets with Julia for advice and to agree the next steps. Julia warns Katie about Adam betraying her (because a windfall like they have experienced does strange things to people), and advises that the Police are getting a search warrant for their house. When they go to the bank together to inspect the safety deposit box, they find it empty. Julia suspects that Adam stole it and tells Katie to get him in the house and call her.

Back at the house, Katie confronts Adam about the money which he has laid out on the bed packing it into a hold all, urging them both to get outta there. He tells her that he researched Hayden and discovered that he is actually a jewel thief who was recently released from prison, and not the Real Estate Agent he is making out to be. They deduce that Ethan was Hayden’s partner and Hayden killed him to get his share of the diamonds, which Adam has estimated to be worth US$3M. Ethan, critically wounded, fled to Leonard’s house where he died shortly afterwards. Hayden obviously knows the diamonds are stashed somewhere in the house and is eager to find them at any cost. As Katie and Adam are preparing to leave, Hayden emerges and holds Katie at gunpoint, asking for the diamonds. Hayden and Adam face off pistols raised at each other and exchange gunfire. Both are killed. Katie rushes over to Adam, with his final words being 'in the garden' before he dies of his wounds. 

Julia then arrives on the scene and tells Katie that Hayden was the one who killed Leonard, giving him an overdose of his medication, and that the noises that Leonard heard at night would have been Hayden breaking in and searching for the diamonds. Julia reaches for Hayden's gun and holds Katie at gunpoint, revealing that she is also part of the plot. She had met Hayden during her public defender duties and orchestrated everything, including Leonard’s forged last Will, in order to get a share of the diamonds. Detective Chesler arrives in time and shoots Julia dead.

We then jump to four months later, and a pregnant Katie is weeding the garden. Detective Chesler comes by the house to advise her that the case is now closed and that Adam is taken off the suspected persons list and as such his name and reputation remains unblemished. Katie tells the Detective again, that she still has no idea where the diamonds are, and if she did she would tell. The two part ways, and Katie returns to the house but not before turning on the garden sprinkler.

'Dangerous Lies' moves along at a good pace for all of its efficient 96 minute run time, but it does feel somewhat pedestrian and much like a made for TV movie. The film offers no real surprises but it is watchable albeit contrived, and a good time waster if you're hankering after some mindless movie entertainment while in enforced self isolation. You would have to wonder how such an affable well meaning good natured intelligent young couple could become so embroiled in several murders, several more dead bodies, stolen diamonds, secretly stashed cash, a crooked lawyer, and both being threatened and held at gunpoint while still being so lucky inheriting a small fortune, a grand home and everything contained therein. Life changing on all counts indeed! The limited number of principle characters keeps the attention focused albeit in a shallow way amidst the plot twists and turns that are ultimately fairly predictable or don't go anywhere at all or remain unanswered. It's a bit like 'Knives Out', but for kids, and the title of this film is a little ambiguous.

'Dangerous Lies' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-