Terry Zwigoff’s “Bad Santa” is probably going essentially the most cynical, legal, and foul-mouthed Christmas film ever made. It is so savage and vulgar that even gory Christmas horrors pale as compared. It is the one movie that folks of younger youngsters immediately forbid and youngster-lock the tv for every time it comes on in the course of the vacation. It is also a stone-chilly traditional: hysterical, brutally trustworthy, and touching in an surprising manner.
There are two causes for that: Glenn Ficarra and John Requa’s no-holds-barred screenplay and Billy Bob Thornton’s repulsive, startling, and self-centred efficiency because the lead Willie, a low-life legal and alcoholic, who attire up as Santa every year to rob the department stores the place he performs at in the course of the day. However regardless of all of his appalling and self-harmful tendencies, Thornton manages to dig up and discover the character’s coronary heart, making him not solely likable however relatable, too. By the tip of the movie, he turns Willie right into a sympathetic loser who goes by way of a lot s*** (from bodily and emotional abuse to jail time) that it is virtually a miracle he is nonetheless alive.
That’s simply the factor: he can take an excessive quantity of beating (each actually and figuratively) from life with out backing down and getting up each single time, regardless of how onerous the blow was. As Rocky Balboa famously stated: “It ain’t about how onerous you hit. It is about how onerous you may get hit and maintain transferring ahead.” And Thornton did such a incredible job as this depressing and pathetic man who one way or the other all the time will get again up regardless of the percentages that it caught Taylor Sheridan’s eye, making an impression on him that he hasn’t forgotten since. Thus, it is no shock that he wrote “Landman” with the actor in thoughts to play the lead, Tommy Norris, and likened his resilience to “Bad Santa’s” Willie.
Landman’s Tommy and Bad Santa’s Willie share one key character trait
Though Zwigoff’s film and Sheridan’s sequence could not be extra completely different, the depth and charisma that Thornton dropped at each roles are what make them really memorable and excellent. Norris is a tough-edged and highly effective man, whereas Willie is a weak-willed, unhappy drunk, but they’re each extremely robust and resilient people in their very own proper. Naturally, that is on account of Thornton’s magnetism and ballsiness as an actor, which Sheridan liked and acknowledged early on. In an interview with Deadline, the author-creator elaborated on why he knew that Thornton can be the right candidate to play “Landman’s” protagonist. He stated,
“Nicely, he was from the world, proper? Possibly not the oil world, however he’s from, from rural America. His household’s from Texas. He feels true to this place. There is a fierceness to him, a fearlessness as an actor that lends actual technique to his phrases. He looks like somebody who simply will not again down. There is a line that he says in Bad Santa that made an impression on me. I am paraphrasing it, however he says one thing alongside the traces of, ‘I am actually good in a combat as a result of I am not terrified of getting hit.’ And in order that’s an ideal embodiment of Tommy in Landman of that character, proper? He is a fighter, not as a result of he is essentially a superb fighter, however as a result of he is simply so resilient and is not terrified of getting hit.”
Should you’ve seen the primary season of “Landman,” you may’t actually argue with that assertion. Whether or not it is drug cartels, ruthless attorneys, ex-wives, or oil billionaires who need to pile by way of Tommy, he all the time comes up with one thing to face his floor. He is a cockroach in a cowboy hat you may’t kill, no matter how onerous you are attempting to. That form of resilience is inherently part of Thornton’s performing repertoire (as seen within the first season of “Fargo” or “Goliath” moreover “Landman” and “Bad Santa”), making him a captivating actor to look at if given the fitting materials — and Sheridan’s newest Paramount+ hit and Zwigoff’s traditional are definitely two of the perfect examples.
