Written by: Theodore Melfi, Christopher Wehner
Directed by: David E. Talbert
Starring: Tim Allen,Vincent D'Onofrio, Dax Shepard, Luke Grimes, Jessica Alba, Kurtwood Smith
Rated: TV-MA
Watch the trailer
Plot
A young man searching for his father, ends up barricaded in a liquor store with the owner, a drunk, a deputy, a single mom, and her kid. They experience a wild Christmas they never saw coming.
Verdict
This takes the cheesy holiday happy ending movie and makes it much darker. It blends a cop abusing his power with comically inept cops. It feels like two movies smashed together, creating a strange tone that I couldn't figure out. At times I thought this was trying to sneak in a message, but ultimately it doesn't. While it has a predictable ending, like many holiday movies do, the body count distinguishes this from the genre. It could almost be a character study, but the 'revelation' isn't that big and too many characters are there to only serve the plot. This has a lot of the pieces, but they don't quite fit.
It depends.
Review
From Hidden Figures (read my review) director Ted Melfi, Melfi has wanted to make this movie for ten years. The story takes place in the fictitious town of El Camino, Nevada.
The trope of showing the last scene first always annoys me. The only reason it's done is to add excitement and anticipation because the movie's true opening fails in that aspect. In this it feels especially tacked on. Showing that scene robs this movie of a payoff and is a spoiler, albeit minor.
This shows us a bunch of different characters, and even if you didn't know the plot, you know they will end up together. The local cops are suspicious of Eric, an out of towner with a muscle car. He's just trying to track down his dad. It leads him to an apartment with the grouchy drunk played by Tim Allen who tells Eric he isn't his dad but will tell him what he knows for a beer.
This ratchets up the intensity rather quickly, only exacerbated by inept cops. Eric gets arrested and subsequently beaten by over the hill, apathetic cop Carl (Vincent D'Onofrio). Another cop, Billy, aids in Eric's escape.
With everyone at the liquor store, and at least one gun shot wound, Billy and another cop descend on the liquor store and begin opening fire. One of them is at the front of the building, the other at the rear. They are "returning fire" at each other shooting through the building. This level of ineptitude just doesn't track with Carl who beat up Eric. The movie tries to make us feel sympathetic for Carl to no avail, mainly because this isn't Carl's movie. He's set up as the villain and it's a throwaway line. Carl is interesting, but the movie doesn't develop him.
This has some manipulative, redeeming moments, but another shootout ensues. I wasn't sure how this would end, it seemed poised to have a real downer ending, but the movie does pull out a conclusion. It's a dark movie, but it's so brutal that I get why his took a while to make. It's a typical cheesy Christmas movie with a body count. While this does have a revelation, the preceding and following violence just felt gratuitous. It's almost a character study, but it doesn't study enough. The secondary characters don't have enough agency to be likeable. You could strip this movie of most of them and it wouldn't change a thing. It actually would focus this on the tension between a cop who beat a man he detained, dealing with both their issues. Ultimately I wonder what this movie was really trying to do.
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