Fatman & Goggins

“Fatman” (2020)
Starring Mel Gibson, Walton Goggins, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Chance Hurstfield
Written and Directed by Eshom and Ian Nelms
Rated R for bloody violence and language

When I first discovered “Fatman” and its concept – Mel Gibson as Santa Claus, forced to make compromises to his business model to adapt to contemporary challenges while fending off an assassin played by Boyd Crowder himself – I wanted to see it. But I wasn't sure I would like it.

I imagined an over-the-top shoot-em-up as Gibson-as-Santa clashed with Walton Goggins (who played Crowder to oily and occasionally sympathetic perfection over six seasons on “Justified”). I expected violence and humor, but was concerned there would be too much of the former and too much darkness in the latter.

The movie was not what I anticipated.

Gibson (who has made some missteps but remains a fascinating presence on screen) plays Chris Cringle, who we meet not making toys in his workshop but shooting cans off fence posts as Christmas approaches. It's clear to the audience he is Santa Claus, but he's just another resident to the townspeople of North Peak, Alaska.

Hardly the first film to question Santa's role in the modern world, “Fatman” casts him as part of the global economy, so important that the U.S. government subsidizes his toy-making. But with kids getting naughtier, Chris and his wife, Ruth (Jean-Baptiste), have to look elsewhere to keep the operation afloat, reluctantly accepting a military contract to build computer panels for fighter jets. All of this is played with a weary realism instead of over-the-top satire, though there is still humor.

Chris has made a few enemies along the way, chief among them the hitman played by Goggins (listed as Skinny Man on IMDb) and Billy Wenan (Hurstfield), whose family's wealth gets him everything he wants except the attention of his father. The Skinny Man collects toys made in Santa's workshop while nursing a decades-old grudge. When Billy gets a lump of coal in his stocking, he hires Goggins to eliminate the Fatman once and for all.

We do get a Christmas Eve scene, but it's done with the same grounded style. I thought for a while the more fantastical elements would simply remain off-camera. That was true for the flying sleigh and reindeer (though we see both on the ground), but suddenly, there are elves. They have pointed ears but otherwise just appear a bit shorter than the other characters.

Chris initially appears to be a mostly normal human, though we presume he's rather long-lived. Later scenes hint at above-average strength and durability. One elf claims “it's giving that keeps him young.”

The showdown with Goggins builds over the course of the film. His efforts to find Chris through deception and threats – and a body count – ring familiar from other crime/action films. There are offbeat moments, but even the manner in which he finally picks up the trail, while it should seem goofy, still comes across as plausible, at least in the world of the movie.

The assault on Santa's workshop is surprising, brutal and tense. The Nelms brothers made some interesting choices, and it didn't go the way I thought, even as I revised my expectations on the fly.

Despite the dark elements and gritty approach, “Fatman” does manage to mix in some optimism. It's worth watching again, though you won't catch it in any Hallmark or Lifetime holiday marathons.