Get Santa (2014)

Get Santa is an at-times adorably daft holiday farce.

Some parts – the solid cast, a few well-turned one-liners – are really quite good indeed, although viewers have to wade through a moderate fug of reindeer fart jokes to get to them.

You’ve got to take the rough with the smooth, and there’s a lot of smooth here. Jim Broadbent has the balance of jollity and melancholy just right as Santa.

There’s enough sly wit in the margins to engage the grown-ups and the whole thing conveys Christmas cheer without being overly cynical.

Midway through, the plot gets rather bogged down, unfolding on what seems like one of the longest December days for daylight hours ever witnessed in the Northern Hemisphere. However, Broadbent keeps the smiles coming in a wonderfully committed turn as the incarcerated toymaker.