R, 82 min.
Director/Writer: Roger
Hedden
Starring: Campbell Scott,
Katrin Cartlidge, Eric Stoltz, Moira Kelly, Peter Riegert, Carlo Alban, Daryl
Hannah, Charles Durning, Saundra Santiago, Tegan West, Bruce MacVittie,
Michelle Durning, David Aaron Baker
I found this movie in a list
of obscure “Christmas” movies. It isn’t really a Christmas movie. It just takes
place in December, so there’s a good deal of holiday references. It’s also not
very good. I’d call it the cinematic equivalent of a bunch of friends getting
together and throwing together their own stage production just for the heck of
it. Each person gets to do something he’s always wanted to do, or really likes
to do. There are cliché stories and some fairly inappropriate situations considering
this is supposed to be a comedy. I mean is accidentally shooting someone really
a good opportunity for some humor between friends. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just
a little too uptight about guns.
It’s one of those hyper-link
movies where several stories are told; and as they develop you discover that
they are all related to each other in some way. Campbell Scott plays the same
role he took on in the much better “Singles” as a bar tender who is put upon to
take care of the people that he loves. His sister needs $900 for an abortion,
or at least that’s what she tells him. It’s really for her boyfriend, who tells
her is for his sister’s abortion when it’s really to pay off a gambling debt.
So Scott’s character spends the evening tracking down debts he’s owed to come
up with the money. He eventually finds himself confronted by his ex-girlfriend,
who owes him the money, but he doesn’t want it from her. She also happens to be
the boyfriend’s sister. The boyfriend is shadowed all evening by the muscle for
his bookie, who recruits his girlfriend’s kid to rob the guy once he gets his
money. Yeah, we’re getting pretty confused by now. Don’t worry; it’s delivered
all too simply to get confused while watching it.
I almost feel bad coming
down on this movie. It isn’t ambitious, so it’s not really the actors’ faults
that it never really achieves anything. I don’t know. I laughed a couple of
times, but I certainly can’t recommend it. It has this sense that it exists
simply so these performers have something to do until they get to their next
job. It’s kind of like the picture I posted above. It tells you nothing and it’s
not a very interesting picture, but I have it there because I have to have a
picture from the movie there.
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