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Bad Santa 2 (2016), R, ★

A tired Willie Soke and a more tired Thurman Merman.
I am not a big fan of the first Bad Santa movie. Yes, there are golden moments in the dialogue that is provided by Billy Bob Thornton's that made me roar with laughter, but, somehow, I have detracted from that experience and have not generously accepted as one of the best comedies or one of the best Christmas movies. As far as comedy sequels go, especially this year, it has been a train wreck. I can easily put probably the worst movies of the 2010s list and half of them would be comedy sequels. And, with Bad Santa 2, I'm afraid that the garbage comedy sequel streak continues as it is overloaded with the same scatological and one-note filthy humor that the first one had and had no fire or intelligence in the dialogue or the script.

Willie Soke (Billy Bob Thornton) has been in a terrible rut over the last few years: he has been fired after working as a valet driver, his girlfriend, Sue, left him due to his screw-ups and he has been suicidal. During his umpteenth suicide attempt, Willie is interrupted by Thurman Merman (Bret Kelly), who is now a baby-ish looking adult and is now dumber than ever. He works at a sandwich shop who still follows Willie around now knowing that he does not believe in Santa Claus. So, what is he doing this movie? I was sort of confused.

Willie gets an unexpected visit from his old partner, Marcus (Tony Cox), who has just got out of prison. Marcus tells him that he is working on a job for $2 million in Chicago. Willie is not willing to accept his deal because Marcus tried to kill him last time. They are to rob Giving Way, a charity organization that Willie finds out that one of the people robbing it is Sunny (Kathy Bates), Willie's mother who is cynical and horrible towards Willie. He agrees to work with Marcus and Sunny on the condition that they cut ties with Sunny.

What are we doing in this movie?
I was face palming for the duration of this movie. I could not believe how utterly lazy and crass the humor was and almost all of the humor is unfunny. The Thurman character is funny for the first time in the first movie but, here, he is still a one-note character that is equivalent to just one joke: we laugh because he is dumb and pathetic and it becomes tiring. I have to be honest there is not much that I can say about this movie because the movie just panders on by pushing the boundaries by making fun of people with a short height, women in general, fat people and produce some farsical humor that does not take off.

Billy Bob Thornton, Kathy Bates and Christina Hendricks are talented people who should have known that this was a bad story to begin with because they have been in fantastic or award-contending films. There is not much passion in this project because it is mostly filled with profanely-filled dialogue with repetitive humor that is mind-inducing. And, I'm glad that Bret Kelly was having a good time with this movie because his character was not funny at all this time around. Thornton does not look like he is having good time, Kathy Bates' character is underused and Hendricks should have worked on her character more rather than play another character portrayed by Lauren Graham from the first movie.

I'm going to just close out that I am giving this movie one star because there were a couple of lines that are funny but mainly it was in focus. If this is a movie that will get you excited for the holiday season, you deserve a lump of coal because this movie is a lump of coal. There is not much creativity in this movie as it is a merely a reunion that is going on-screen and we are unfortunately invited to witness it. It is undoubtedly one of the worst movies of the year and probably one of the worst Christmas movies I've seen.

*


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