Billy Bob Thornton wears a Rolex Day-Date (replica)

Open a metal cash box on a table in Bad Santa and this is what spills out: bricks of hundred-dollar bills, a ring, a couple of small cases, and a gold watch lying loose beside the money. The watch is part of the haul, which is the whole point of the shot. Terry Zwigoff's film, produced by the Coen brothers, casts Billy Bob Thornton as Willie Soke, a safecracker who works mall-Santa gigs as cover and robs the store on Christmas Eve, with Tony Cox as his partner and Bernie Mac and John Ritter rounding out the cast.

The watch reads as a gold Rolex Day-Date in its President form. In the close-up beside the cash the case wears a fluted bezel, the dark dial is dotted with bright points that read as diamond indices, and the bracelet has the rounded center links that give the President its name. It is exactly the watch a small-time crook buys himself the moment he is briefly flush. Look closely and the screen tells two stories about the same piece: earlier, on Willie's wrist in the warm light of a dim bar, the dial washes out pale; in the shadow of the cash box it goes dark with the indices sparkling. That is screen lighting lying about a dial, which is half the reason this one is better called a Day-Date in spirit than a confirmed reference, no crown or wordmark ever quite resolving on screen.