Get Santa

Get Santa works best when it lets its actors get on with making a Christmas film about an ex-con and prisoners. Christopher Smith, who writes and directs, finds some warmth in that combination without scrubbing everyone clean for family viewing. We found it an amiable but uneven choice, worth considering for the cast rather than the rescue plot. The jokes and the pace are too unreliable to give it an unqualified recommendation.

Rafe Spall gives Steve’s efforts to reconnect with his son more weight than a seasonal caper strictly needs. He is dryly funny without making the father’s predicament into a running joke, and the wish to put things right remains believable. We were moved by those attempts at reconciliation, because the performance allows Steve to seem fallible without asking us to write him off. That concern for the relationship with Tom gives the film something worth returning to whenever the running about begins to wear.

Jim Broadbent is equally important as Santa Claus, playing the part with a conviction the surrounding bustle does not always deserve. The prison scenes give him a useful audience of sceptics, and watching his warmth work on the inmates supplies much of the comedy. He does not need the film to keep reminding us that Santa is special; he makes the man’s company pleasant enough on its own. We would happily exchange some of the chase business for longer in his company.

Christopher Ross’s cinematography helps by keeping London recognisable, giving the impossible visitor somewhere ordinary to belong. John Frankish’s production design provides solid settings for the prison comedy, and the care taken over the sets makes the weaker effects more conspicuous. The real reindeer are useful for much the same reason: there is pleasure in having something substantial in front of the camera. When the effects have to supply the wonder, the picture looks less convincing, and Jim Broadbent has to do more of the persuading.

The writing is less dependable than the performances, particularly when it reaches for another reindeer fart. Such jokes have an audience, and a family comedy need not apologise for bodily functions, but repetition does not make them funnier. Christopher Smith’s rougher touches are more welcome when they complicate the usual Christmas sweetness rather than merely interrupt it. The prison scenes are funnier, and they already provide enough disruption of the usual Christmas good manners.

Stuart Gazzard’s editing keeps the action busy, but the prolonged escape and chase passages still drag. Too much time goes on getting from one predicament to the next, while the better comic exchanges feel short-changed. Ilan Eshkeri’s score supplies the expected warmth, though the moments between father and son need less assistance than the music gives them. At 102 minutes, the film allows its less interesting business to occupy too much of the evening.

As a family Christmas comedy, it deserves some credit for allowing an imperfect father and a prison population into the festivities. Its goodwill is easier to accept because the cast give these people a little roughness, and the film does not insist on being tasteful. The result will suit those who like their seasonal viewing a bit scruffy and can forgive a sluggish middle. Choose it for Jim Broadbent and Rafe Spall; a tolerance for reindeer wind will help.