Recently, I purchased a sweater with a picture of St. Nicholas of Myra on it.  Below the image, it reads: “I came to give presents and punch heretics . . . and I’m all out of presents.”  St. Nicholas, in case you do not already know this, is the basis for Santa Claus (Mel Gibson).  One of my complaints about Jolly Ol’ St. Nick is that he has little to do with his historical forebear, but that is Christmas these days for you.  St. Nicholas is reputed as having provided dowries for three poor women hoping to be married.  This has been translated down through the centuries to Santa Claus being a magical gift giver.  What is also spoken of about St. Nicholas is him slapping the heretic Arius at the Council of Nicea in 325 over a disagreement as to the divinity of Jesus.  This is the reason for my sweater.  I also find this a better origin story to help explain a movie like Fatman (2020).

Actually, it is going to challenging to explain this film, partially because it does not begin with a Fatman.  Instead, we meet a boy with a Napoleon complex, Billy Wenan (Chance Hurstfield).  That is not a flippant remark on my part.  He literally has a picture of the infamous French emperor hanging on the wall of his bedroom/office.  From there, he orders the staff to leave him alone, swells with pride over his first-place science fair ribbons, and steals money from his grandmother and guardian, Anne Marie (Deborah Grover).  Speaking of those awards, he fully expects to win another at school, but is shockingly usurped by Christine Crawford (Ellison Greer Butler).  To rectify this situation, he calls upon Jonathan Miller (Walton Goggins).  Jonathan is a hitman and general bad guy, but we have already met him as a person who buys toys from adults that had been delivered by Santa.  It is part of a vendetta he has against Chris Cringle for a perceived lack of generosity when he was a boy.  For the moment, Billy has Jonathan kidnap Christine.  In the basement, Billy threatens torture if Christine does not go back to school, say that she had cheated on her project, and thereby giving him the coveted prize.  With that accomplished, Billy looks forward to Christmas Eve and getting a present from Santa.  Instead of getting something he wants, he opens a box and finds a lump of coal.  Unsurprisingly, he does not react kindly, calling upon Jonathan to assassinate Santa and bring Cringle’s head back on a platter.  Jonathan is keen to take on the assignment, but Santa has other things about which to worry.  Interspersed with the scenes already discussed, we see Chris dealing with a reduction in Christmas spirit.  Driving into the nearby Alaska town of North Peak (get it?), he hears on the radio nothing but stories of kids doing terrible things.  The flagging sense of holiday cheer not only affects him emotionally, but is leading to smaller checks from the United States government.  That was not a typo.  In this world, America subsidizes the North Pole in order to keep the economy going, especially during the holidays.  His mood is not helped when he is shot at while delivering presents, being wounded in the side.  When he returns home to his wife, Ruth Cringle (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), he is greeted by Captain Jacobs (Robert Bockstael).  The army’s presence is not unwelcome, but their offer to fix Chris’ financial problems is less attractive.  Now that Christmas is over, the government wants Santa’s workshop to begin manufacturing parts for their newest fighter jet.  It is not the way Santa wants to get back in the black, but eventually he comes around to the idea and is in a better mood.  It is improved even more when he goes into town and picks up the first round of checks for this new endeavor.  While he is there, he is spotted by Jonathan, who has been able to figure out the connection between Santa and North Peak by doing some research.  Jonathan follows Chris to his workshop and is able to take out all the military personnel now guarding the area.  Thinking Santa to be in his factory, Jonathan enters the facility and laces it with explosives, but not before being detected by the elves.  Captain Jacobs dies getting Santa’s helpers out, but not before alerting Chris to the presence of an intruder.  This leads to the inevitable showdown between Chris and Jonathan, which ends with Santa taking a bullet to the head.  In the process, Ruth wings Jonathan but is also wounded.  Jonathan follows her into the house where she lays a trap for him, eventually killing him.  Miraculously, Chris is not dead.  Indeed, not long thereafter, he is back on his feet, and he and Ruth make a visit to Billy.  In the boy’s bedroom/office, Chris warns him to never mess with Santa again, prominently displaying his shattered eye courtesy of Jonathan to demonstrate Santa’s imperviousness.  The last scene takes place back at the workshop, an eye patched Chris overseeing the rebuilding of his factory.

It may be odd to say something like this, but one thing I appreciated about Fatman is that Santa’s workshop looked like a real location rather than a magical land overstuffed with all the Christmas clichés imaginable.  It is a silly thought when you consider the absurdity of the American government being in league with Santa Claus, or simply the idea of Santa in general, but there is something to be said about the realness.  I am not speaking of the realistic violence or blood spurts, but the fact that this version of the North Pole is one around which we can wrap our brains.  It humanizes a person whose representation has deviated for the real one, just like we have obscured many of the traditions we practice around this year that have their basis in the birth of Jesus.  It is forgetting those origins that is part of why Chris is losing his faith in Christmas, and humanity in general.  On the other hand, when he is starting to feel like his old self, Ruth reminds him of an important truth: the good outweighs the bad.  This has some crucial theological implications for us.  Like Chris listening to all the bad news, we can sometimes wonder where God is amongst all the strife and turmoil in the world.  Further, we want God to come down, wave a magic wand, and make everything better.  We test God by doing so, something the Church specifically warns against, and tend to abandon our faith when the conditions we put on the Divine are not met.  If you read Scripture, you will know that in passages like Matthew 24:6-13, Jesus tells us that you will hear of all manner of terrible reports, but that God will save the faithful.  Such good news triumphs over all the bad news combined.  More succinctly, it is about perspective, something sorely lacking in Chris’ life until the end.

Then again, Chris would be physically sore after the beating he takes in Fatman.  That, along with the title, makes for less than favorable viewing material no matter the time of year.  One can say this is a different type of Christmas movie, but I would rather see something else.