The thing about “Bad Santa” is that it’s really a one-off. That outrageous 2003 hit featured Billy Bob Thornton as a safecracker whose cover involves dressing up as a department-store Santa.
The gleefully lousy character found a tiny sliver of redemption at the end. The film was funny and oddly satisfying, and Thornton enjoyed a signature role.
There’s really nowhere else to go with the idea, but here’s “Bad Santa 2” to bring back the formula. The film itself isn’t awful — it packs some good lines and a few decent variations on the theme — but it can’t help feeling like more of the same.
Thornton returns as Willie, whose life has again fallen apart. His partner in crime, Marcus (Tony Cox), is out of prison and ready with another heist idea: Rob a Chicago charity at Christmastime.
Much to Willie’s horror, this scheme reunites him with his mother (a grossly tattooed Kathy Bates, having fun). She is an even worse human being than Willie (she made him take the fall for her unspecified crimes when he was 11, which he hasn’t gotten over yet).
Amid Mom’s endless insults, the group hatches a plan. Willie also tries his luck with Diane (Christina Hendricks, from “Mad Men”), the charity’s manager. If that sounds like an unlikely match, you forget Willie’s inexplicable charm with women.
Director Mark Waters (“Mean Girls”) obviously tries hard to maintain the hard edge of the original. There are some utterly offensive one-liners, as expected, and the stream of profanity is nonstop.
Some laughs come out of that, but more often the movie sets up promising ideas and then doesn’t deliver. Two wacky security guards at the charity, a champion shot-putter with a liking for Willie, Mom’s monologue about feeding Willie caramels as a child — nothing quite lands the way it should.
Many of the choicest bits — funny and otherwise — result from the return of the lethally named Thurman Merman, Willie’s young pal from the first movie. Thurman is now 21 and played by the same actor, Brett Kelly, who remains wide-eyed and gullible.
There’s something about putting Willie in the role of reluctant parent that pays dividends. If only the rest of the movie had this kind of consistency, its lump of coal would seem more like — well, a funnier lump of coal.
“Bad Santa 2” (2 stars)
An unneeded sequel to the outrageous 2003 hit, with Billy Bob Thornton returning as a safecracker dressed in a Santa suit. The movie pushes a little too hard to be as profane and offensive as the first one, and the ideas (including the addition of Kathy Bates as Thornton’s awful mother) never quite land the way they’re meant to.
Rating: R, for language, nudity, subject matter
Showing: Everett Stadium, Marysville, Alderwood, Alderwood Mall, Thornton Place, Pacific Place, Cascade Mall
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