All American Christmas Carol

A white-trash mom is visited by three ghosts intent on showing her a path to a brighter future.

This film was watched as part of Eric Roberts Appreciation Day (April 18), and Roberts plays the Ghost of Christmas Present. As far as all the many different versions of this story are concerned, this is not the best one. Not even close. In fact, it is a wonder why they keep making such films at all with the story being done to death.

Despite this, the cast is pretty decent. These may not be A-listers, but Roberts is a known face ,and even Taryn Manning probably has her following. Maybe this is worth watching once around Christmas time, but I doubt anyone is going to make it a Christmas tradition like they would with "Scrooged" or "Muppet Christmas Carol".

This movie was terrible. Story line was lame and acting wasn't that great. Modern day trailer trash Christmas Carol. Could be a funny concept, I grew up in a trailer court, I know what I'm talking about. This movie had a few laughs but was mostly cringe inducing. Skip it.

It's hard to make a Christmas move that has a good storyline and plot but is also emotional or comedic. While the momento of a trailer park mother comes to grips with her bad life choices, nothing in the movie was memorable , emotional or funny. I really wanted this to be a good movie but it had all the faux paus of a C grade movie rolled up into a Christmas storyline that has been done over and over and over again.

"All American Christmas Carol" tries to play both sides of the line between trailer trash schlock and family redemption ala Dickens. Unfortunately, it fails to entertain in either realm. The pace of the movie is uneven and slow, bouncing around story points that go on too long and initially leave you wondering what all this is leading to. Most of the cast is competent enough, but the characters and situations, as written, are uninteresting and unconvincing. Ironically, when the first ghost finally appears in the presence of the character supposedly needing to be un-Scrooged, the moment is rushed with no buildup or reaction whatsoever to the game-changing event. Why this scene is played with such dryness by both characters is both puzzling and disappointing, especially after so many uncompelling scenes leading up to it. And so it goes with the rest of the spirits who have their subsequent (and unremarkable) interactions. At what point this movie was supposed to be entertaining was lost on me. The resolution that finally brings this movie to an end is equally unbelievable, uninteresting, and prolonged.

I gave this movie 3 stars for good acting by some of the cast, and overall technical production that was decent. None of those stars are for special effects, as the ghosts appear mostly via camera cuts and are only afforded makeup for their afterlife appearance.

If you like stereotypical trailer trash gags, this movie has a few. Otherwise, there's not much else in it worth the hour and a half.

Mom had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. And you never did find out why she gave up on life in the first place. She was lazy and thoughtless and selfish and disrespectful. The three spirits really didn't follow the normal pattern that you would have expected. I got kind of lost on the three spirits. I thought the acting was okay even though it was a low-budget flick. Like I said earlier it could have been a good movie had the script been better. What was up with her hair? It look like she was wearing an old wig that she found at Goodwill that needed to be brushed out . Her hair and makeup was awful through the whole movie. It's okay movie for some cheap entertainment