ROTTEN ST NICK

REVIEWED - BAD SANTA:  Promoted as fearless, forthright and twisted, Bad Santa appears to have all the right credentials for an irreverent alternative to the saccharine fodder that usually passes for cinema entertainment in the season of rampant commercialism, writes Michael Dwyer.

It originated in an idea from its executive producers, Joel and Ethan Coen. The director is Terry Zwigoff, hot off the success of his incisive, darkly humorous and unexpectedly touching comic adaptation, Ghost World.

And the adventurous Billy Bob Thornton takes the main role, as Willie T. Stokes, a safecracker and ex-convict who moves to a different city every Christmas, working as a department store Santa Claus. He drinks on the job, grumpily treats children with contempt, and every Christmas Eve he robs the store safe with the help of his elf and partner in crime (Tony Cox).

When we first meet Stokes, the snow is falling and he's guzzling liquor in a bar, dressed in his unkempt Santa suit and steeped in self-pity. All changes when he and his elf target a Phoenix store. Stokes unexpectedly gets sexually involved with an implausibly Santa-fixated waitress (Lauren Graham), and taken into the home of a snot-nosed, overweight eight-year-old boy (Brett Kelly), who is bullied by his young neighbours.

Zwigoff once again expresses his empathy with society's outsiders - a recurring feature of Ghost World and his documentary, Crumb - and Thornton selflessly immerses himself inside the foul-mouthed and obnoxious alcoholic criminal he plays.

However, this is essentially a one-joke movie, with the result that the crude screenplay is merely sporadically funny and nowhere as subversive as it imagines itself to be. And when it arrives at its resolution, it actually buys into the phoney sentiment it has been feebly attempting to lampoon.

The film is dedicated to the late John Ritter, who, in his final screen role, has the thankless part of the snooping manager at the Phoenix store.