PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Dec 20, 2020 22:58:44 GMT -5
In a year where we're desperately in need of some holiday cheer comes Fatman, a movie featuring Mel Gibson as a washed-out Santa Claus attempting to keep his struggling business afloat right as a bratty, precocious kid hires a hitman to take Santa out because he received a lump of coal for Christmas. From that brief plot description, you should have a good idea of whether or not this movie will be up your alley. Well, suffice to say, I was onboard from the minute I saw the trailer, and this is a movie that gave me exactly what I wanted. There's a fine line between tones that this film walks: on one side, you've got the Santa Claus side of the story, which is decidedly taken quite seriously. And to his credit, Gibson certainly doesn't phone it in. He's committed to the grizzled characterization and actually brings a believable and even sympathetic quality to the role that just makes the overall movie a lot more involving and compelling than I was expecting. There's a scene around the middle where Santa is delivering the news to his worker elves that they'll temporarily be manufacturing military technology, and the sense of defeat and remorse Gibson brings forth in this scene is surprisingly effective. The vast majority of movie Santas have all been of the typical holly and jolly variety, so it does feel rather fresh to see one that's pretty radically different than the norm, and done so with as much credibility as it is. I really bought into the interpretation. On the other side, you've got more of a black comedy tone in the scenes featuring the kid and the hitman played by Walton Goggins, who's also a lot better than you'd expect, given the material. His whole character background is the kind of weirdly interesting type that can only work in a black comedy and with a performance as good as Goggins' here. Some might say that the two tones may feel too at odds with each other, but I think they work in tandem together. The movie IS overall a dark comedy; even the Santa Claus-related scenes have some good laughs in them based in how they show this now cynical Santa interacting with the world. It's just the drama works so well, that it can understandably throw some people. If I have any complaints, it mainly has to do with the fact that so much of this movie is about the build-up to the eventual showdown that it eats up a lot of the runtime of a roughly 100-minute movie. There did come a point where I was ready for the movie to just get to the big payoff already, but fortunately, when it gets there, it's worth it. The big climax really does have the feel of the kind of showdown you'd see in a Western movie, and it's a great payoff. Not only in just how Santa squares off against the hitman, but also how he deals with the kid who put the contract out on him. Fatman isn't great cinema by any means, but it gave me precisely the movie I wanted, and even managed to do it in a slightly better way than I was expecting. It's a helping of black comedy with a dash of pathos and a sprinkling of gritty action that makes Fatman a Christmas movie that's sure to be added into my personal rotation.
***/****
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1godzillafan
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Post by 1godzillafan on Dec 21, 2020 9:11:00 GMT -5
Fatman
This is the movie we should have done, but didn't because PG Cooper is too much of a pussy. PhantomKnight would have preferred I'd watch this first, but Sean Connery's wife beating trumps Mel Gibson's anti-Semitism.
This film features Santa Claus, played by Mel Gibson, who has fallen on hard times and is forced to take a government contract of weapons manufacturing or see his workshop get shut down. Meanwhile, a little psychopath gets a lump of coal for Christmas and hires Walton Goggins to kill Jolly Ol' St. Nick. This leads to a confrontation between Goggins and Santa Mel where Santa is all...
Fatman reminds me a little bit of The Christmas That Almost Wasn't. They have somewhat similar setups and antagonists, which both see Santa Claus in financial trouble in a Capitalist generation while being antagonized by a jerk who resents him for not giving him the present he wanted. Of course, that's where the similarities end, because Fatman is more of a vengeance drama parody with the holiday fantasy slant.
It comes close to working. The movie is very much in on its own joke. It realizes it's an absurd premise for an action movie, and it feels like the melodramatic approach to it is intentionally tongue-in-cheek. But it feels a bit frustrating as in places it feels like it's inches away from an idea clicking into place and becoming inspired, while in others it feels full meters away while it squanders it. The movie never really fulfills itself, though it feels like there is something to be made out of it.
To be fair, I also get the sense that the movie might have been scaled back. This feels like there might have been a more elaborate first draft that had to be tossed due to budgetary concerns. The film is surprisingly light on the action, with its only real sequence springing to life in the last fifteen minutes. Though Gibson is well cast here, he doesn't really get enough time to shine as an ass-kicking Kris Kringle (though he has a pretty great intimidation scene to close it out). The rest of the movie is devoted to world building, trying to make this version of Santa Claus and his environment make sense, while also devoting time to Walton Goggins on a road trip.
It's entertaining to a point, but it could be more so if more was do e with it. Fatman is competent enough as a creative genre twist, but it neither falls into the category of good or bad. |
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Doomsday
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Post by Doomsday on Dec 28, 2020 17:18:04 GMT -5
I thought this was a perfectly enjoyable movie even though like Godzilla mentioned it certainly feels like it was held back for some reason or another. It might have been budgetary, it might have also been because the writer/directors didn't know how to bring it up to the level it could have gone but regardless it was still zany enough to work. Mel Gibson really brings his all and if you had to find an actor to portray a tough, hard drinking, hard up but at the same time strangely compassionate Santa Claus then he would be the perfect choice. Walton Goggins also eases into his psychopath persona which is up his alley. It's by no means a fantastic work of art but it's a fun excursion into a new vision of Santa and the North Pole. With lots of killing.
B so says Doomsday
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Dec 28, 2020 17:49:33 GMT -5
I thought this was a perfectly enjoyable movie even though like Godzilla mentioned it certainly feels like it was held back for some reason or another. It might have been budgetary, it might have also been because the writer/directors didn't know how to bring it up to the level it could have gone but regardless it was still zany enough to work. Mel Gibson really brings his all and if you had to find an actor to portray a tough, hard drinking, hard up but at the same time strangely compassionate Santa Claus then he would be the perfect choice. Walton Goggins also eases into his psychopath persona which is up his alley. It's by no means a fantastic work of art but it's a fun excursion into a new vision of Santa and the North Pole. With lots of killing. B so says Doomsday Very similar thoughts as mine.
The movie was shot entirely in the month of February this year right before the Covid shutdown, and that kind of short shooting schedule tells me it must've had a smaller budget. That and the lion's share of the action is saved for the last thirty minutes. Like you and Zilla, I want to see the mid-budget version of this movie with more money to put towards the action and such, but I was still satisfied with the movie I got. I was not expecting Gibson's performance to be as compassionate, like you said.
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