In the town square of Cloverdale, Massachusetts (actually a Vancouver soundstage), where the new Christmas movie ‘Deck the Halls’ takes place, there is an old time movie house.
It’s showing a double bill of ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ and ‘Miracle on 34th Street,’ two beloved Hollywood movies that tapped into the joy and spirit of Christmas.
The eggnog and mistletoe memories of those films only points up to how crass, tacky and cynical ‘Deck the Halls’ really is.
If ever a film needed a laugh track it's this one. If only to point out that these are the jokes – folks. That is in case you miss them.
It reminds one of those terrible American cable sitcoms where every sentence is met with peals of riotous laughter from the virtual audience.
Director John Whitesell dutifully cuts away from the offending faux joke to a protracted reaction shot as if the audience in the theatre must be rolling around on the floor and has to catch up.
The police chief wears women’s clothes under his uniform. HEEEEEE!
Due to cutbacks the angel on the top of the town’s Christmas tree is a plastic doll of Marilyn Monroe. HAWWWWW!
Two daddies make lewd comments about three underdressed Santa’s elves until they turn around and (get this) it’s their daughters. HOO! HOO! HOO!
Even the actors look embarrassed. What a waste of talent!
Matthew Broderick reaches the nadir of his movie career as Steve Finch, a small town optometrist who used to be Mr. Christmas to his cardboard neighbors.
Danny DeVito is Buddy Hall who is (what else) an insecure but loud-mouthed lout who moves in next door. Danny’s wife is Broadway’s incandescent, but completely wasted, Kristin Chenoweth (‘Wicked’).
If ever there was a cynical effort to cash in on the season it’s this predictable, by-the-numbers, wassail of kool-aid Xmas cheer.
DeVito feels his life has amounted to nothing but gets the idea that if he puts enough lights on his house, it can be seen by satellite from outer space. Somehow this validates him as a human being. So he sets about lying, stealing and conning all about him – including his own family – to turn his house into a garish Christmas version of the Las Vegas strip.
Of course, the traditionalist Dr. Finch is horrified by the vulgar display across the street and immediately turns into the Grinch. He too is willing to sacrifice his family’s holiday in an effort to bring down his high-flying neighbor.
I’m sure the ghost of Chuck Griswald of ‘National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation’ is smiling nostalgically somewhere as the good Doctor, in an effort to blow up Hall’s house with fireworks, sets his own Christmas tree on fire.
Are we laughing yet?
I’m not letting something really important, plot-wise, out of the old Christmas bonnet here am I?
Actually ‘Deck the Halls’ seems to be modeling itself on “Christmas Vacation.” If that’s so, it fails consistently.
Chevy Chase’s movie was an often hilarious spoof on the traditional family Christmas. ‘Deck the Halls’ tries to find the beating heart behind all its tinsel and sham and locates only a lump of coal.
In fact, the ghost of Its A Wonderful Life’s George Bailey must be weeping as ‘Deck the Halls’ steals the ending of his movie.
The good burghers of Cloverdale gather around to help Hall realize his dream of Christmas Eve. The fact that he has cut down the town’s Christmas tree, kept his lights and music going until 4 A.M., stolen power from his neighbors and all the love is completely unearned doesn’t occur to the makers of this mean-spirited movie.
I think Hollywood has just trashed Christmas.
Opens wide USA November 22. MPAA: Rated PG for some crude and suggestive humor, and for language.
HofnerwbOct 1st, 2007 - 11:16:18
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