I try not to know too much in advance about films I watch. When I saw a DVD for “Riders of Justice” (2021) with Mads Mikkelsen’s big, bearded mean-mug on the box, I assumed it was a sloppy, meathead, biker action flick. I mean, his name is MADS. Well, Mads supplies plenty of gunfire, but I was the one walking into an ambush – subtitles (they’re speaking Dansk), wacky professors, deep conversations about math, death and fairness (both separately and together), and some truly dark humor. And it’s a Christmas movie! It’s no coincidence pleasant surprises are often the greatest joys.
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If “Happy Christmas” (2014) is a Christmas movie then all y’all need to shut the hell up about saying “Die Hard” isn’t a Christmas movie. “Happy Christmas” happens to take place at Christmas, but it’s really just a character study about a ne’er-do-well layabout sibling that brings joy to a mundane home when not almost burning it down. Anna Kendrick is the ne’er-do-well and Melanie Lynskey (priceless in “Two and a Half Men”) is the sister-in-law who could use something/someone to rouse her from a post-partum funk. Every generation has these types of middling dramedies. This one’s for the millennials.
I see too many movies with time-sequence problems, but I’m going to pick on “The Family Stone” (2005) because it’s not good enough to deserve grace. In most Christmas flicks, 79 hours of activity is packed into one day. Here, we go from “not breakfast yet” to “it’s dark out” in the span of one argument. I know sunset comes early during a New England winter, but come on. Anyway, ensemble film with too many unlikeable characters. I think it was trying to show how love keeps a big, sloppy family together, but it didn’t get me to care enough.
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