‘The Ice Harvest’ Is Billy Bob Thornton’s Best Christmas Movie

In 2003, Billy Bob Thornton starred as the title character in Bad Santa, a gritty, crime-filled, adult-oriented Christmas comedy. Fans of that movie, though, will be thrilled to learn that two years later, Thornton played one of the leads in The Ice Harvest, a gritty, crime-filled, adult-oriented Christmas comedy. Sound familiar? Despite their surface-level similarities, however, The Ice Harvest is a very different kind of film from Bad Santa, and an arguably better one. This 2005 feature co-starred John Cusack and was directed by Harold Ramis, whose previous work includes Groundhog Day. The coming together of three experienced contributors to the movie industry for a gangster Christmas movie works extraordinarily well.

Set firmly in the underworld of Kansas, The Ice Harvest follows Charlie Arglist (Cusack), a mob lawyer planning to run away with $2 million he’s embezzled from his strip-club-owner employer, Bill Guerrard (a nasty Randy Quaid). Thornton plays Charlie’s accomplice, Vic Cavanaugh, who makes his money selling pornography. Ready and desperate to escape with their stolen cash, the frozen roads and busy streets of the holiday season hinder Charlie and Vic’s getaway.

A Neo-Noir Christmas

The strengths of The Ice Harvest lie in the fact that, while a pure gangster film on the surface, its deeper values are entirely suited to its Christmas setting. Despite its hard exterior and gritty storyline, the movie has a warmth at its heart which is undeniably festive — and there are some genuinely strongly emotional moments throughout its runtime (partly thanks to a wonderful supporting role from Oliver Platt). With its dark setting, great performances from the cast, and a strange Christmastime beauty, The Ice Harvest might just be Billy Bob Thornton’s best Christmas movie.

While Thornton’s Bad Santa character Willie is a small-time criminal, hopping between shopping malls and robbing whatever cash he can get his hands on at the end of his stint, in The Ice Harvest, he plays someone far more involved with the criminal underworld. Vic Cavanaugh is an experienced, hardened criminal with ties to far greater forces than just a thieving mall Santa. Vic is closer to Thornton’s character in Fargo Season 1 (but with a better haircut) than his character in Bad Santa.

The sense of scale is higher in The Ice Harvest, and the movie is keen to present the gang world dangerously enough. Throughout the film, several gang members appear, each serving different roles within their respective organization. This grounds the movie within a clear type of culture, and the elements of Scott Phillips’ novel from which the screenplay was adapted land very well on-screen. That’s partly because this is a clearly cinematic tale, tethered to the warm neon glow of Christmas lights and the howling, snowy winds of Kansas in winter.

Writers Richard Russo (a Pulitzer Prize winner for Empire Falls) and Robert Benton (a three-time Oscar winner for Bonnie and Clyde, Kramer vs. Kramer, and Places in the Heart), were mostly faithful in their adaptation, and director Harold Ramis clearly understands the genre of cinema from which The Ice Harvest takes its lead. This is a film rooted in the noir tradition of the 1940s and ‘50s, but updated for the 21st century without losing too much of that classic vibe and feel. There’s even a wonderful femme fatale role from a sultry Connie Nielsen. The Ice Harvest really succeeds as a gangster flick, and its Christmas setting is an added bonus.

Phenomenal Performances from Thornton & Cusack

Billy Bob Thornton and John Cusack rise to the challenge of these criminal characters, and both put in some wonderfully nuanced performances which allow them both to showcase some of their acting range. With a spiky relationship and consistently stressful responses to the heist and its many double-and-triple-crosses in the film, both characters feel realistic. Cusack is at his melancholy best here, drawing from the handsome, cynical antihero he perfected in The Grifters, Grosse Pointe Blank, and High Fidelity, but with a much sadder edge.

Both actors relish the ability to oscillate between comedy and drama, and the movie benefits overall from this — as well as slightly lightening the chilly mood from time to time. Cusack gets a few more opportunities to shine than Thornton, but the latter’s performance is still inspired, and obviously distinct from his previous Christmas turn in Bad Santa. The two actors obviously built a strong rapport five years prior with their film Pushing Tin, and it pays off here. The relationship between their characters here is somewhat akin to that of Ken and Ray in another crime caper, In Bruges. While not too similar tonally, there are similarities in the way that both movies manage to conjure up an emotional response to two criminals.

The Christmas Spirit for Lonely Souls

Despite its dark — at times fairly bleak — setting, The Ice Harvest has some genuinely heartfelt moments which play into the tropes of more traditional Christmas movies. Cusack’s character, Charlie, has a funny, great relationship with Oliver Platt’s character, who is currently married to Charlie’s ex-wife. For anyone who feels lonely at Christmas, watching Charlie peer through the window at his old family celebrating the holiday is particularly poignant. Bad Santa and The Ice Harvest are both great films to drink to, but The Ice Harvest is much more soulful.

It’s not exactly a film for the whole family — nor, necessarily, should it even join the festive feel-good ranks of Home Alone and Miracle on 34th Street — but The Ice Harvest encourages its viewers to sympathize with its characters, and with anyone who might be lost or alone at Christmas (even criminals). The Ice Harvest, however mature and adult its plot might be, is deserving of a place somewhere among the Die Hard franchise as a refreshing and unexpectedly different Christmas favorite.