Fatman (2020)

Fatman is special because it takes a premise that sounds like a joke—Santa versus a hired killer—and plays it with a surprisingly straight face, letting the absurdity land as deadpan comedy while still delivering real stakes. Mel Gibson’s Santa is less twinkle and more weary grit, the kind of mythic figure who looks like he’s been carrying everyone’s expectations for centuries, and Walton Goggins is a delightfully unhinged counterweight, turning menace into something oddly magnetic. The vibe is a wintry, offbeat mash-up of holiday folklore and hard-edged thriller, with bursts of action that feel more bruising than cartoonish. It’s not for anyone looking for cozy Christmas cheer, but if you want an original, darkly funny seasonal curveball that commits to its own strange identity, this one’s easy to recommend.

Fatman is clearly trying to mash up a gritty, grounded Santa myth with a darkly comic hitman thriller, and on paper that’s a fun, nasty little Christmas curveball. In practice, the tone wobbles between bleak seriousness and wink-at-the-camera absurdity, so you may spend more time adjusting to what kind of movie it wants to be than actually enjoying it. The pacing can feel oddly flat for something with this much violence and premise, and the humor is more dry and sporadic than laugh-out-loud, which makes the “edgy Santa” hook feel underused. If you want a coherent action-comedy or a sharp satire, this may frustrate you, but if you’re up for an R-rated, offbeat holiday oddity with committed performances (especially Gibson and Goggins) and a few solid, brutal set pieces, it might still scratch that weird seasonal itch.