26 November 2008 10:39 AM, PST | From Studio Briefing - Film News | See recent Studio Briefing - Film News news
Most critics are saying that as a holiday present, Four Christmases amounts to four lumps of coal in the fireplace stocking. Actually Kyle Smith in the New York Post remarks that it really amounts to "a grenade in your stocking." He writes: "A raunchy Christmas comedy can work - see "Bad Santa" - but going dirty means increased risk. The difference between the average unfunny Christmas comedy and this one is the difference between grandpa telling you knock-knock jokes and grandpa telling you knock-knock jokes with his bathrobe open as his hand creeps up your thigh." Likewise Michael Phillips writes in the Chicago Tribune: "The acrid, wince-worthy "Four Christmases" may well be part of the war on Christmas Bill O'Reilly's always fog-horning about. Christmas and Christianity will survive it. But barely." And Ty Burr concludes his review in the Boston Globe this way: "Like all lousy home-for-the-holidays comedies, Four Christmases doesn't even have the courage of its own bile, ending with a message of love and fuzzy fellow feeling that directly contradicts the misanthropic sourness of everything that has come before. When will filmmakers learn that if you start with Bad Santa and finish with It's a Wonderful Life, you just end up with curdled eggnog?" Claudia Puig in USA Today gives it one of the better reviews, writing, "The film has its funny moments, but they are too few to make the holiday excursion worthwhile." And A.O. Scott in the New York Times even calls it "refreshingly tart and lean, forgoing the usual schmaltz and syrup."
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