Chris (Mel Gibson) is starting to lose faith in humanity as he finds less and less people deserving of the gifts he delivers at Christmas time. Billy (Chance Hurstfield) is a neglected twelve year old whose reaction to receiving a lump of coal from Santa is to hire a hitman (Walton Goggins) to kill the Fatman himself. Whilst Goggins unnamed assassin is intrigued to get the job of snuffing out the man who ignored him as a child.

Fatman is a bizarre Christmas film that some how works. Written and directed by Eshom and Ian Nelms it takes on the ethos that Batman Begins did when beginning the Nolan bat trilogy. Can we ground this fantasy in the real world as much as possible and treat the fantastic aspects as just part of the world? So we have a Santa who is struggling to keep his business running because the number of deserving children mean there are less presents to give at Christmas. This results in him being forced into considering a contract with the US army to make ends meet. We have two incredibly disgruntled characters who know that Santa is real and are driven to extreme lengths because of their bitterness. A bitterness that puts Santa on a collision course with a killer. And we have elves that work twenty four hours a day thanks to an optimised sugar based diet to improve their efficiency. It does somehow manage to include small doses of the Christmas spirit with the large doses of cynicism. We learn that Santa’s powers come purely from the act of giving and that his wife Ruth (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) keeps him on the straight and narrow.

Whilst Gibson’s world weary Santa is intriguing the real star of the show is Walton Goggins. Gibson’s movie star persona gives his gruff Santa magnetism but Goggins assassin’s foibles are funny and scary. His love for his pet hamster and obsession with hoovering up authentic toys from Santa’s grotto give him some likeability in amongst his psychopathic tendencies but it is that ability to flip between normal and homicidal that keeps his character so interesting.

One gripe would be that it slightly falls between stalls. It has some comedic moments related to its cynicism but it is not an outright comedy. And whilst it has some shoot outs it is not an action movie. Instead it is like a modern day Grimm’s fairy tale that tells us that whilst the Christmas spirit exists Santa is not an entirely benign saint.

If you want something different as a Christmas movie this year this certainly fits the bill.