My choice of picking 'Get Santa' (2014) went like this. I was scrolling through Netflix and glanced at this film. Santa looked at me. I looked at Santa. Something seemed warm about his eyes, welcoming. Almost like we he was inviting me to join him. As I continued to look I felt transfixed, hypnotised almost by the baby blue gaze. Becoming more and more memorised I manged to utter but four words. Those words? "Is that Jim Broadbent?" That description may not be entirely accurate but Jim Broadbent was a major selling put for me watching the film in the first place. But it is not just him gracing this film with his presence. This film is absolutely stacked with British talent, from Super Hans to Doctor Who. It is because of the wonderful cast that the film is as disappointing as it is. Sometime an incredible cast can save a mediocre script, and while this cast does to an extent, it is not enough for the film to be all that good. The film follows Steve (Rafe Spall), an ex-convict who is looking to reform and rebuild a relationship with his son, Tom (Kit Connor). However, this plan becomes a lot more difficult when Santa crashes his sleigh and is thrown in prison. He chooses Steve and Tom to help break him out, which forces the two on a road trip across the country and puts Steve at risk of breaking his parole and returning to jail.
The first thing I need to say about this film is that is 100% for little kids. It is not a film made for me. I am not the demographic. It is for this reason that I can't criticise the humour in the film all that much. It is very childish, with fart and poo jokes being rife throughout. I do have one thing to criticise in this department and that is just one particular joke which is stolen from 'Elf' (2003) in which a dwarf, in this case its Warwick Davis, gets mistaken to be an elf. Its exactly the same joke except delivered a lot worse. The plot itself is not terrible either. Its pretty bog standard, but it doesn't make it bad. It is the writing where the film falls flat on its face. I can't exactly put my finger on it but something about the dialogue in the film feels off. Everything seems rushed and confused. A lot of it feels unnatural to me. The relationships in the film also seem rushed. People argue over tiny things in order to push the plot forward rather than to build genuine emotional relationships. This means that, come the films climax, I felt nothing for the characters and their strife or their relief. I just didn't care. And it's not like they couldn't have done this if the writing was better. the cast is stacked full of wonderful actors and they could easily have created emotional connections with the characters and audience.
Before I go into the performances in the film I'm just going to make a list of who is in it. Jim Broadbent, Rafe Spall, Ewen Bremner, Warwick Davis, Jodie Whittaker, Matt King and, the pick of the bunch, my boy, Stephen Graham. As British casts go this one is not half bad. And they all put in pretty decent performances, some better than others. The problem is that, with the exception of Spall and Broadbent, the rest of the cast are sparingly used. None of them have enough time to make a really great impression on the film. Stephen Graham is probably the pick of that particular bunch, but that may also be because I am massively bias towards the man. Rafe Spall does a good job as protagonist Steve. He has a couple of good comedic line readings and manages to show some believable emotion when called upon. It is not an incredible performance but its good enough for the quality of the film. Jim Broadbent' performance as Santa was a roller coaster. I started off thinking it was okay, then I hated it, then it was back to being okay, then poor again and I finally finished off thinking it was just fine. I think Broadbent is doing his best, and in the moments where he is having genuine conversations with people he is good. But when he is asked to be a silly Santa, which is how the character is written in this film, I feel like he struggles a little.
The quality of the cast of 'Get Santa' is it's greatest strength and biggest weakness. The fact the cast is so strong means that the filmmakers would have been to have been blind, death and dumb for the film to fail completely. Unfortunately, the quality of the script means that these actors are not given the appropriate time or writing to turn in a really good performance. I wouldn't recommend this film if you are over the age of 11. But if you happen to be 11 or under, first of all what you doing here and, secondly, this film may just be up your street.