The Santa Suit

This is a fine little Santa movie as Drake Hunter, the scrooge-like owner of a toy company, finds himself mysteriously transformed into a Santa lookalike for the Christmas season -- he looks and feels like himself in his own mind, but everyone sees him as the jolly old elf in the red suit, even himself in mirrors -- and comes to recognize how empty his life is. Although this sort of body-switching device has been used many times before, this variation on it is well handled in the script department and well worth your time.

I do have one issue: Kevin Sorbo plays the role for as understandably depressed and low affect for the first hour. As I have commented in many another review, this is appropriate but uninteresting but there are enough interesting performances around him to sustain the movie until he begins to slowly work his way out of that state and into a decent person in the second half. That pay off makes the movie.

I was expecting a silly Christmas comedy, ha ha, a Scrooge executive is changed into Santa, learns the error of his ways (while making us laugh at his predicaments) and of course is magically transformed into the reformed Scrooge by the end. I expected nothing really special, but since it's rated 6.7 I expected to enjoy it.

Wrong. I laughed and smiled a few times early on, but basically I found this to be a very touching movie as Kevin Sorbo more and more saw himself as others saw him, and he didn't like it. That his singular focus on the bottom line hurt others, and worst of all, that he didn't even care. I was especially moved by his retelling of his Christmas bike story. I liked that his transformation was gradual, and not a light switch. I would only say that I wish Hallmark had sold 2 or 3 minutes less of commercials, so that the exposition of the new person he had become could have been more gradual.

I liked it a lot, I highly recommend it, and can't wait to share it with my wife.

The first time I got acquainted with "The Santa Suit" was during the Christmas holidays of 2016, as I sat down for a Christmas movie marathon with my family.

I must say that this movie actually turned out to be rather good, which was somewhat of a surprise. None of us had expected much from the movie, given the synopsis and the cast list. But "The Santa Suit" actually turned out to be a rather enjoyable movie.

Sure, this movie is as predictable and generic as you would assume, given the storyline and the presentation of aforementioned storyline. But still, writer Kevin Commins and director Robert Vaughn had managed to create a rather enjoyable Christmas movie.

As for the cast, well, I initially had some reservations as the only one I knew was Kevin Sorbo, and his track record of movie performances has been somewhat fluctuating. But he really stepped up here and performed quite well, and I do think that he was quite suitable for this particular type of movies.

If you enjoy watching Christmas-themed movies during the holidays, then "The Santa Suit" is definitely worth checking out. Sure, it is not a classic such as "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation", "It's a Wonderful Life" or "Home Alone". And, for me personally at least, this movie doesn't really have that quality to it that allows for multiple viewings year after year.

While this is nothing new about using a sort of a "George Bailey / Scrooge" outline for the story, its nice to see it in a new concept. Rich greedy CEO gets a new outlook on life. Of course it doesn't hurt that Kevin Sorbo is the hunk of a CEO. Although he is a little bland in the beginning he comes out of his uneasiness to embrace his role as Santa. I thought this would be a "boo-hoo save the little poor kid movie" and I wasn't about to watch it. But I was dying to see a new Christmas movie and this one turned out surprisingly good. No matter how mean they try to make Kevin Sorbo he always comes across as super nice though. The supporting cast was okay. Of course there are a few teary scenes but all in all it was a fun movie.

I'm always dubious about TV movies on these kind of channels, but this one actually drew me in. I only started watching it by accident, stood there with a coffee just staring at the TV, the found myself drawn in to the amazing Christmas message. It's cliché, it's obvious what happens and we all know where the story is heading but how it gets there is very well done and makes for a really watchable and entertaining Christmas film. Well worth a watch.