While some families reminisce over eggnog and brightly wrapped presents, this family gets together with more nefarious endeavours in mind. This time out, it’s the lowest of the low, robbing a charity. The plot is ultra thin and really only used as a device for verbal humour and what humour it is. Even for those with thick skins to surprise, there are some real zingers here.

Kathy Bates gets most of the really outrageous lines and milks them for all they are worth. She also presents quite the utilitarian image of a modern mother covered in bad tattoos and with a jail-yard haircut. She redefines the term mother with hilarious results. Billy Bob returns to one of his funnier roles but is limited in his impact with a script that feeds almost all the good lines to Bates.

Films like Bad Santa 2 go a long way towards balancing out the usual saccharin holiday fare by being as shocking and darkly offensive as possible. Every holiday break film list should include some subversion and Bad Santa 2 fits that bill with aplomb.

Rob Hudson
www.badsanta2.com.au

Starring Kate Beckinsale, Chloë Sevigny, Tom Bennebt, and Australian Xavier Samuel in his first romantic lead role, Love & Friendship is an adaptation of young Jane Austen’s novella, Lady Susan. Set in the 1790’s, earlier than most Austen novels, Love & Friendship concerns beautiful young widow Susan Vernon who has come to Churchill, the estate of her in-laws, to wait out colourful rumours about her dalliances circulating through polite society.

Love & Friendship is witty, with wickedly humorous quick fire dialogue providing refreshing appeal to this beautiful costume drama, with all the things you would expect from an Austen adaptation; romance, beautiful period costumes and settings, as well as plenty of gossip and drama.

www.loveandfriendshipmovie.com

Competition will be drawn 20 July 2016, winners will be notified by mail.