Prime Video’s first full trailer for “The Man with the Bag” puts Arnold Schwarzenegger in a Santa suit and commits to the joke. Prime Video posted it on Monday, November 2nd, and the holiday action comedy premieres on the service on Wednesday, December 2nd. Adam Shankman directs from a script by Allan Rice, with Schwarzenegger as Santa Claus and Alan Ritchson as a thief named Vance. Some headlines call this Santa meets Jack Reacher. It is not that, because Ritchson is best known for “Reacher” but plays a different man here.
The setup fits on a card. Santa’s red bag is stolen by a rogue elf with a grudge, and with his biggest night of the year close, he recruits a thief from his Naughty List to get it back. Awkwafina plays the elf. Berkeley James, Michael Cyril Creighton, Liza Koshy, Kyle Mooney, Jane Krakowski and Ken Jeong round out the cast. The film arrives 30 years after Schwarzenegger starred in “Jingle All the Way”. Prime Video also released a teaser on Wednesday, September 30th. Warning beyond this point there are spoilers for everything shown in the trailer and teaser for “The Man with the Bag”.
Santa’s red bag is stolen by a rogue elf with a grudge, and with his biggest night of the year close, he recruits a thief from his Naughty List to get it back.”
The teaser ran 51 seconds and sold a mood. It opened on a windswept arctic landscape and moved through a reindeer with a glowing green nose, a tray of pink-frosted cookies and Santa’s hands on a belt buckle. The trailer drops all of it but four shots come back unchanged: Schwarzenegger throws his arms wide before the gold Prometheus statue at Rockefeller Center, a red sack sits against a stained-glass window, an elf works at a candy bench and Santa sits in a patterned sweater at a pink-lit diner. The teaser also closed on Schwarzenegger in the full red suit bellowing “I’m back!” at the lens. That shot is gone too. The trailer is where the story arrives.
The trailer opens in a Christmas diner where a girl in a nutcracker sweater eats beside a man in a gray hoodie. A voice asks “So… what have you been up to the last 4 years?” and the next cut finds him in a black parka with a clear plastic bundle under one arm. Then the work starts: a hand holds a photo of a snowflake brooch beside floor plans, Ritchson leans in at a white door with a hole burned through its lock and a hand reaches into a lit display case for a bracelet. Vance takes a call and a voice on the line says “Vance, I got an opportunity for you”. The caller adds “The guy will be wearing a red coat”. That man is already on the ice at Rockefeller Center and gliding through the skaters before he finishes with a split jump. “You’ve got to be kidding me”, Vance says. The MGM lion arrives about half a minute in.
The meeting happens in the snow. “I’m looking for Kris, with a K”, Vance says, and the man in the red-and-gray bobble hat answers “You found him”. Then comes the reason in four words, “My bag was stolen”, and a shot of a sack against a stained-glass window shows what that means. A girl in a yellow beret turns up as Vance’s daughter Emma, played by Berkeley James according to SlashFilm. Kris tells her “Your dad is about to commit a crime for me”. The trailer then moves to a stable where a gilded red sleigh waits with reindeer in harness. A voice says “I hate to break it to you kid, but that ain’t Santa” and Emma answers “Why not give him a chance to prove he is who he says he is?” before the sleigh leaves the ground and trails light past a full moon and over a tower lit green and red. Vance spends the ride doubled over, and “Here, this candy cane will settle your tummy”, Santa says, holding one out.
Back at a pink-lit diner with Emma and Vance over milkshakes, Santa now wears a patterned sweater. “She’s a disgruntled elf”, he says. Cuts between that answer and the elf herself follow, first a candy workshop and then a hotel, where a red-haired woman in an elf outfit and a red bobble hat checks in. “Nadia. Nadia Nyce”, she tells the desk clerk, and the subtitle spells it that way. Awkwafina plays her. “Monopoly money”, says the clerk, looking at the cash on the desk. In her suite a giant red sack sits on a couch while she holds up a gold candelabra. In a dim workshop Vance names his price with “I want five million” and Santa asks “Candy canes?” before Vance closes the deal with “Welcome to the Naughty List, Mr. Kringle” and the first title card drops.
Title cards read THIS CHRISTMAS, NAUGHTY and MEETS NICE with a hotel corridor between them. In it a heavyset man in a green elf hat carries a Santa suit, a man in a cowboy hat and bolo tie wears a hotel name tag, and Schwarzenegger walks beside them in the full costume. The line over the corridor is “Put your game faces on, because we’re saving Christmas” and it sets up a run of hotel gags. Ritchson turns in a closet doorway with a vault door behind him, and a red-haired woman in a blue jumpsuit throws a kick at Vance in his work uniform. In a hallway Santa stands in the red hat and white scarf beside Vance, whose navy work shirt has Gustavo stitched on the chest. “Trust me”, Santa says. In the lobby a voice asks “How did that feel?” and “Like I never want to do that again” comes the reply over a shot of Vance.
The billing cards come spaced out. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER lands at about a minute and 52 seconds and ALAN RITCHSON follows with AND AWKWAFINA after that. A stage show and a snowy hug between Vance and Emma fill the gaps. Awkwafina’s elf gets the next line, smiling in her bobble hat, with “I’m taking over Christmas”. Schwarzenegger’s line is “I’m 225 pounds of Christmas cheer” and the setting becomes a bar packed with Santa costumes. A red-coated figure on the bar yells “Catch me!” at the crowd. The title does not appear until about two minutes and ten seconds in and then come the magic gags. Vance tries “Magnets?” at the sleigh and gets a drawn-out “Maaa-gic!” in reply. A man in a cowboy hat is flung along a ceiling above a chandelier and the Statue of Liberty’s crown appears with reindeer crossing in front of it. Vance settles for “I’m gonna figure it out” and the last card reads NEW MOVIE DECEMBER 2. The PG block beside it cites “action and some suggestive references” and the Prime logo closes the footage at about two and a half minutes.
The release came with a new poster that puts Schwarzenegger in a red duffel coat and bobble hat with Ritchson behind him in a black beanie, smirking over his shoulder, and a “Naughty, meet nice” tagline above the title. The teaser’s poster gave Schwarzenegger the frame alone with his arms open, and both carry the December 2nd date and the PG block. The film joins “Red One” and “Oh. What. Fun.” in Prime Video’s holiday lineup. Santa takes the front of the poster and Vance stands behind him with his arms crossed. That is the whole pitch in one image.
The trailer sells a family comedy built on one joke and it knows the joke. A thief hired from the Naughty List is a decent hook, and Schwarzenegger keeping a straight face in a bobble hat is a better one. The footage withholds how the crew comes together and how a hotel job ends in a bar full of Santas. It leans on real New York landmarks, from the Rockefeller Center rink to the Statue of Liberty, and that helps. Amazon frames the film as Schwarzenegger’s return to Christmas movies after 30 years. The trailer pitches something smaller and safer, a PG heist with a big man in a red coat.
What Do You Think? Does Schwarzenegger’s Santa work as the straight man, or does the film need him to throw a punch? Is a thief recruited from the Naughty List a real hook, or one gag stretched to feature length? And would you watch it on December 2nd, or hold it for Christmas week?
See you on the next binge!
