El Camino Christmas

Dir: David E. Talbert

2017

**

El Camino Christmas is another great example of 2017 saying no to the usual Christmas formula. We are told that events are taking place during the festive season, I think I spotted a picture of Santa somewhere in the background and it begins snowing like it means something in one of the most arid places on earth but apart from that, it isn’t really a Christmas film and is all the better for it, as it can now be watched all year round but really pushed during November and December. It’s somewhat of a shame that the lead character is played by the least animated actor I’ve ever seen (Luke Grimes) but he is supported by the brilliant Vincent D’Onofrio, Kurtwood Smith, Dax Shepard and Tim Allen. D’Onofrio does what he does best and plays the film’s villain – who is a little more complex than most Christmas-themed film villains and the great Kurtwood Smith plays a hardened cop who fights but fights fair. Dax Shepard plays the idiot in that way that he does (and I would wager he supplied the cars) and Tim Allen returns (sort of) to the festive genre, in a role that is pretty much as far away from Santa as he could get. That said, there is a line; “Ho, ho, ho, who’s gonna know?” that is blatantly a reference to his role in the Santa Claus trilogy, which is backed up further when Allen refers to Kurtwood Smith’s character as a ‘RoboCop’. It is an above-average day-time made-for-TV film at best but as a Christmas film is comes as a welcome relief. The characters have a bit of meat on the bone and things get interesting when they all become barricaded in a liquor store on Christmas Eve in a mistaken hostage situation. The story had huge potential with many different ways of concluding, unfortunately though I think they picked probably one of the worst endings that they could have. It was wholly unnecessary, I’m guessing they wanted to keep the films rather dark and gloomy tone rather than suddenly turn happy, just because it’s Christmas, but they took it one pointless step too far. It turned a melancholy seasonal film into a ridiculous tragedy, when they could have maybe paused the misery for just a day and gone back to it once it was over, which is really what Christmas is all about anyway. I’m not sure what the desired effect of the film makers was but I enjoyed it up until the end and have no idea what the tragic conclusion was there to achieve. I don’t know why the news-reporter (Jessica Alba) gave birth during the stake-out, I don’t know why it snowed and there is little explanation as to why the little boy was autistic. All these things were meant to aloud to something but were, in truth, vague suggestions there for the viewer to fill in the blanks. The sort of questions that are generally met with a “stop asking so many questions, why can’t you just enjoy it for what it is?” answer. Stupid me for writing reviews for people who don’t watch these kinds of film really but anyway, El Camino Christmas is no masterpiece but it won’t appear on any of my ‘worst Christmas film’ lists.