Get Santa (2014)

Tagline: None. No presents from Santa in this category.

Premise: A young lad and his recently released from prison father must break Santa out of jail and save Christmas. Yay! Christmas! 

Delivery: “Are you on medication? Or worse: are you NOT on medication?”

No I'm pretty good at taking them.

I watched Get Santa with my six year old nephew and three year old niece. Having been to both of their Nativity plays this week, it was my turn to entertain them. The tree is up, the cat is vomiting tinsel (genuinely) and the children had their Christmas jumpers on. Yes, despite my Bah Humbug default setting, I was feeling pretty festive.

Get Santa was chosen because I remembered a review from its release saying it was genuinely good entertainment for both kids and adults. I have to say, any children's Christmas film with NWA in the soundtrack is OK by me. Also it was a quid, in the summer, so I bought it and played the waiting game. Historically, not a game I have had much aptitude for.

What one will quickly realise when watching a children's film with children, is that it is a lot like talking to them. When you talk to children, they ignore you like deaf mutes, whereas if you're twenty feet away and swear, they'll catch every syllable. Putting a film on for them is the same. Basically, they largely ignore the blasted thing. If I'd put Robocop on they'd have been glued to it.

Due to this, I missed a bit of Get Santa because I was fielding questions about what was going on. Which is fine for the three year old, but the six year old was engrossed in his IPad. Either or, mate.

The story concerns cynical ex-con Steve and his son Tom, who rescue Santa's reindeer and try to track down his sleigh. The reindeer “communicate” with farts, which is very funny except that it encouraged the kids to join in. Santa gets arrested and a crash course in prison life, which was novel. It's about as edgy as a film rated U can get, and it is amusing. Get Santa is good, honest, gentle Christmas fun that everyone can enjoy.

The cast is great too, but you try explaining to a three year old that Rafe is the son of Timothy Spall.

Bedsit it? If you've got kids around, yes. It'd be a bit of a weird film for a grown up to watch alone, but I'm not here to judge. Get Santa is not my normal cup of tea, and I only purchased it to watch with the bins at this time of year, and 'cos it was a friggin' steal, so a score of 6/10 is pretty good for it. 

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