A Merry Friggin' Christmas (AKA A Merry Christmas Miracle)

Dir: Tristram Shapeero

2014

**

I'm fairly startled and bitterly disappointing with A Merry Friggin' Christmas considering director Tristram Shapeero's great work in comedy (including Brass Eye, Smack the Pony and Absolutely Fabulous). The main story is poorly constructed, with the premise being fairly underwhelming. The script isn't very funny and nobody gives a particularly good performance. As you'd expect from a Christmas comedy about a dysfunctional family, each member has their own stereotype or quirk but not one of them was humorous, inventive or something the viewer could relate to. The film doesn't lift a mirror towards society, it's simply a badly thought-out idea that relies far too heavily on comedic performances which are impossible to execute with such a woefully bad script. It's a bit racist and insulting to certain groups of people too but so pathetically so that I doubt anyone would get too upset about it. It's sad penultimate film and first to be released posthumously for the great Robin Williams. He is by far the best thing about the film but he just isn't given the script or indeed freedom to do what he does best. The truth is he is completely miscast in his role. The film's only redeeming feature comes from the younger members of the cast. The kids are all pretty good and I'm sure will be in bigger and better productions soon and Clark Duke is extremely likable and the only character who made me laugh throughout the whole film. Overall though, a real disappointing miss as I thought this was going to be one more great on the very short list of decent season comedies, and it really should have been too.