210west

I'm dumbfounded by this movie's popularity. As Christmas movies go, it's loud, nasty, and bizarrely overrated.

The hero and heroine think it's neat to throw rocks at the windows of an abandoned house. The hero taunts and teases his naked and cowering date, whose clothes he won't return. When things go wrong, he throws punches, pushes people around, threatens to beat up those he doesn't like, screams at his kids, kicks down gates, smashes furniture, and -- in a word -- overacts. A drunk slaps his innocent boy employee repeatedly in the face.

In the alternative time-line, without the presence in town of a small savings and loan, the place turns into a sort of raucous sin city, filled with bars, nightclubs, and strip joints. A snarling bartender has two well-behaved customers thrown out into the snow because one of them had the nerve to ask for wine.

I'd say the movie paints a pretty ugly picture of American life -- in fact, of Americans in general.

Granted, the ending, with the hero's new-found appreciation for the world around him, is fairly touching... but it doesn't hold a candle to Scrooge's inspiring transformation in the 1951 "Christmas Carol."