Homeless for the Holidays (2009) User Reviews

So bad on so many levels.

[vampyrecowboy · 2/10 · 11 December 2010]

What could have been and should have been a very good story became a horrible mess, with a soundtrack which could make the ears bleed and performances which can make the eyes bleed.

Editing, coloring, timing, and overall casting was such a letdown that to turn it off was the best result.

I understand that small budgets mean less technology and production values, but had this a larger budget, nothing would have been the better.

It performed as bad from the first 2 minutes in and just stayed there for the entire period until closing credits. Dialogue, story development, characters and emotions were so misguided that I actually felt that watching feminine hygiene commercials would be about as entertaining.

Just so bad, so many reasons and a solid reason to watch something else.

attempted IMDb scam

[zimbo_the_donkey_boy · 3/10 · 25 December 2010]

It's a bad sign when the little kids are better actors than the adults in a movie. I must admit that this flick did do a good job of capturing the ethos of low-life trash. However I was jarred when, rather than those trash learning how to take control of their lives and redeeming themselves, they ended the movie as the same low-lifes but the heroes of the town. The main point of the story was that, when the mean old world is bad to you, you look around for signs from God telling you how to make the best of your bad situations. That is Christianity? No, it is not. Heroes are bums living in the park because the economy is bad, waiting for handouts or a top executive position to drop into his lap, rather than people shucking all their bad habits and taking steps to climb out of the gutter? Not in my world. Nor is the movie very well-made.

How many of these almost universal ten-star voters are regular IMDb posters? 40 of the 43 other reviewers here (so far) have made this their only IMDb review ever! 3 other (besides me) reviewers have found this movie wanting. Why is almost every reviewer listed simply as "from United States"? Apparently to try to disguise their all being connected (as in either the same person or all knowing each other). Does the IMDb look kindly on this "Christian" way of trying to share info about a movie? I hope not.

Huge disappointment

[dancinqueen47 · 2/10 · 26 November 2011]

Prior to watching this on Hulu I came to this site to read reviews. Based on several good reviews I read here and because I generally enjoy movies based on true stories, I decided to watch. I am now halfway through this and am ready to throw in the towel. I could not disagree more with the reviewers here who are of the opinion that this is a good movie. In particular, the acting is possibly the worst I have seen. Worthy of special mention for extremely bad acting are: Michael Wilhelm (Mr. Fergusson). He was especially awful. Worse yet, was Brad Stein (the "crazy supermarket manager"). To stand out in the crowd of horrific actors in this film is quite an achievement. Obviously, the direction was also terrible, for this group to be encouraged to act as poorly as they did. This movie makes the Lifetime movies seem Oscar worthy. IMO, spending 105 minutes watching paint dry would be more entertaining - and a better use of time - than viewing this.

By the Numbers

[Christmas-Reviewer · 1/10 · 22 November 2015]

BEWARE OF BOGUS REVIEWS. SOME REVIEWERS HAVE ONLY ONE REVIEW TO THEIR NAME. NOW WHEN ITS A POSITIVE REVIEW THAT TELLS ME THEY WERE INVOLVED WITH THE MOVIE. IF ITS A NEGATIVE REVIEW THEN THEY MIGHT HAVE A GRUDGE AGAINST THE FILM . NOW I HAVE REVIEWED OVER 200 HOLIDAY FILMS. I HAVE NO AGENDA. I AM JUST HONEST.

This was as bad as any film can get. I applaud that the writer took a chance but the casting fails him. I think nobody in this film ever took more then 1 acting class.

In this film a man who is a snotty adman ends up losing his job after he agrees to take the fall for a faulty label. He is promised that he will get his job back as soon as "Controversy subsides". Little does he know his former boss/friend makes Mr Potter (from It's a Wonderful Life") look like a saint. Now after he loses his job he then slowly start losing everything else. His wife sticks by him and his kids are too good to be true.

After he loses his job from the a boss from hell he gets a new job for minimum wage. He then sees that his new boss that is not from hell but from "hell adjacent". What did work in this film I am still trying to figure that out. The film is family safe but if you love your family don't make them watch this.

This is not a fake review

[loriwallace-93796 · 1/10 · 27 May 2017]

There is many FAKE REVIEWS for this film. They have only rated this one film. That tells me they have something to do with this film because they gave it a rave review. Trust me this is the worse film I saw all year.

When I saw "Christmas Grace" and that was terrible. This week I saw "Homeless For the Holidays" and it was the stupidest film I ever watched from start to finish!

I love Christmas films but I hate terrible movies. I don't mind a film with a message but I hate being bored at this film did bore me because it did everything wrong.

I will make a coaster out of the DVD of this!

Most Good Reviews were Written on Oct 20 & 21 2009

[seanhollisz · 1/10 · 9 June 2017]

I saw this film and I had to make my friends watch so they can see what a real bad films is like. I saw all the good reviews this film had and then I saw they were written on October 20 & 21 and the reviewers only had reviewed THIS FILM so that told me that the filmmaker made up a bunch of accounts to help boost the appeal! When I bought this film the IMDb rating was 7.2 or higher. SIX MONTHS LATER that has been cut to 4.5 which I think is also too high.

Looking at the reviews one person that gave this movie "10 Stars" was the star "Matt Moore"

Now the reason why I hate this film is because it was terrible. Bad acting on top of a stupid plot.

I have nothing against Christian Values because I am one. I just hate it when I see jerks manipulation IMDb

Hard to Believe the Entire Story

[louheck-05253 · 1/10 · 3 July 2017]

I think doing a film about a homeless family was a great idea. How this family becomes homeless is just not very believable. In this film an advertising man "becomes a fall guy" at at work. He is lied too when they promise that after things cool down he will get his job back. Well he doesn't and he loses everything.

Now that does sound promising but the film doesn't work. Everyone comes across as a stereo type. The writing isn't strong enough for you to root for any of the people.

The "Happy Ending" of course is telegraphed long before it happens. If the person who wrote this writes anything else I hope they think more about story structure. I loved the general idea if this film I just hated the poorly done execution.

Novel Attempt.

Overrated

[cfederle-1 · 1/10 · 15 November 2009]

After reading the "reviews" one has to wonder if a room full of people saw the same film I did. Perhaps people close to the project are all giving 10 stars but they haven't got a critical bone in their bodies. This film falls short on many levels. The script is not well written but the overall acting is even worse. Add in pacing problems, poor editing and a musical score from a carnival, there wasn't much to rave about. Despite obvious amateur shortfalls there is a nice message. I'm just not sure anyone can sit through it the first 110 minutes in hopes of finding some modest form of redemption.

This movie only played once in Chicago and once was more than enough.

Awful

[tschimick-544-629736 · 1/10 · 6 December 2014]

The acting in this movie is terrible. The plot (if you could say there was one) is terrible. The fake snow is terrible. I'm not sure that I have ever seen a movie this bad. If I had to guess I'd say they wanted the actors to seem overly hokey and not believable. The entire movie is not plausible. Ugh. I wish I could get the time spent watching this movie back in my life.

There are absolutely NO redeeming qualities about this movie other than they are trying to sell a message that you don't need money to have a Merry Christmas.

Save yourself 90+ minutes in your life and do something, anything else. You'll thank me.

105 Minutes of My Life = Wasted

[daniellewahl1 · 1/10 · 21 November 2012]

This movie is by far the worst movie that I've ever seen. The acting was terrible, the scriptwriting was cliché and the underscore was so poorly produced that a circus would scoff at it. There were very few camera angles, which made viewing uninteresting. There were many scenes where the backgrounds were blurred out which actually distracted me more than if they had not been (I understand this'll have been to hide business names, but there are better ways to hide that.) The relationship between the main character and his wife was unappealing, and neither were good actors. The "comical scenes" weren't very funny at all, they were actually so 'unfunny' that they were embarrassing to the viewer. Some of the situations were insanely unrealistic and since this is supposed to be a true story, I was confused. I'm sure there was a good, wholesome point to be made, but it was lost somewhere between the cheesy acting and the poor scriptwriting. I wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone who values good movies!

Very Good movie really hits home

[hornbeak79 · 10/10 · 19 October 2009]

This is a very good movie really hits home for a lot of us very happy that my family could be a part of this wonderful movie. Thank you George A. Johnson for sharing such a wonderful part of your life with us all good luck to you and you're family. This is a movie that really means a lot to a lot of people. Really makes you think wow and be thank full and grateful for the things you have.Family is always with you for the good and the bad love and hold on to every day. Always remember that when things are down and you are down that god will always be their to bring you up and out of any situation. Again thank you and you're family to sharing this wonderful movie with us all.

A beautiful film on overcoming hardships.

[john_9a · 7/10 · 23 December 2019]

I was happily surprised by just how good this film really is. The performers were convincing, the story had a lot of very realistic elements in it. It involves a sole provider losing not only his job but his career. The family faces a series of hardships realistically progressing. Through their losses they find a greater meaning in sharing their time and shared burdens. The acting is uniformly good as is the filming and film quality. The low point was a store manager which was entirely unbelievable and awkward. Towards the end the film did get a little long in tooth and a bit overdone. But this is a holiday film and I'll allow that.

Very Bad...Made Even The Worst

[shanekloughran · 1/10 · 7 December 2011]

This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I somehow ended up ordering this movie on the zune marketplace and boy do I regret it. The first scene of this movie has some kid talking about money and stockmarkets. This kid is basically a robot and the character has no appeal to young viewers. The acting is really bad. It seems like the acting in porn if they took out all the sex and dirty words. Why should I care about this Jack guy? He only cares about himself, you never see him spending time with his kids and he's always ignoring his wife. I was actually rooting against him, he's not a good guy. The check out scene? Really five minutes of BLAH BLAH BLAH with no point. How does this stuff get made? I have a feeling somebody bamboozled some good Christian people into investing in this movie. I am at the 44th minute of the movie and would not be able to live with myself if I wasted another minute of my time watching this. Anybody who says this movie has any sort of entertainment value is mentally ill.

worst acting I've ever seen

[angela-pesa1234 · 1/10 · 14 December 2012]

this was unwatchable. the actors shouldn't even call themselves actors, they're so terrible. A five year old can do better. I wouldn't waste my time if i were you. And now I'm just trying to take up space with all these unnecessary words and stuff because there is a stupid rule that you have to have a minimum of ten lines, which by the way makes no sense because I just want to tell you about the actors who can't act. I can act better than them and i'm 15 and only been in a couple drama classes. it's pretty pathetic whoever directed this. I hope you read this because you could've invested a little more in your actors and I'm sure you could've been a good Christmas movie.

So bad it's good

[sbourque-88667 · 1/10 · 23 November 2018]

Once in a while a film comes around that's so exceptionally cheesy, you can't look away. This film is so incredibly bad, it gets an A+. Perfect for watching with family and dissecting the cheesiness along the way. For bad films, this one ranks right up there among the best of the worst.

Not So Bad As Some Reviews

[Lonely-Mom-Xmas · 5/10 · 25 November 2019]

So people dog the story and movie pretty badly, but if they watch it to the end, they will see something inspirational. I wonder who the real man was? I wonder if the older kids shown later in the movie are the real man's kids? ** Upon further investigation, the movie was inspired by the Director's own experiences with joblessness and financial hardship.

Don't waste your time

[jjflor · 1/10 · 19 November 2017]

I watched this on Hulu, as it had a good rating. The movie has horrible acting and a bad script. This was probably one of the worse movies I've seen. It seemed like a church got together and auditioned members to be in this movie. The characters were very one dimensional and the acting was really bad. No one talks like that, argues like that. The people were very corny, I think the only one that did a good job would be the person that was getting them approved for food stamps. If your looking for a Christmas movie any other movie would do.

Telling it like it is

[katrinainred · 1/10 · 28 November 2009]

I simply had to write so that other viewers are not misled. I saw this film based on all the recommendations it was given, only to leave the movie theater wishing I had my hard earned money back. While this isn't the worst film I've seen, it is the WORST ATTEMPT at a good film I've seen.

I don't doubt the premise is timely, but the execution of the story is insufferable with so many missteps. (Hello? Can you ANYONE act in Indiana?) When you generate HYPE you better live up to it or everyone involved looks foolish. Success or failure will be on its own merits, not on how many friends and relatives you can convince to write a positive review for you.

I think I died inside

[richardhillier · 1/10 · 25 October 2020]

You ever heard of "it's so bad it's good!"

This is "it's so bad... it's just bad."

Terrible acting and movie!

[akytzchyi · 1/10 · 20 October 2020]

This has to be one of the worst Christmas movies I have ever seen. The acting is god awful and the sound effects were annoying. I can't believe anyone would give this movie more than 1 star, because it's that bad. The only thing positive about this movie is when it finally ended. Waste 2 hours of my life.

Great Movie for today's families

[gcovely · 10/10 · 20 October 2009]

My family and I went to this movie this past weekend. We were so impressed with the storyline. While most movies are to entertain only, this movie had an added benefit. It was not only entertaining but we came out of the theater changed. This movie addressed the issue that so many people are facing today. With the economy struggling there are many families out there who find that they aren't able to pay the bills and feed their families. This movie addresses how one family worked through their problems and came out stronger because of them. The one thing I love about this movie is that it does not have a quick "hollywood" fix. The family has much pain to work through before things start to turn around. But, they go through it as a family and they see that "family" is more important than any of the "stuff" they had learned to surround themselves with. I also loved the message this movie sends about serving others. It demonstrates it in such good ways that many families will get some great ideas that they can use in their own lives.

Can it come to our neighborhood?

[kinsfathers · 20 October 2009]

We live near Lancaster, CA, a couple hours north of Los Angeles. We can't wait to see this movie! The trailer looks great and very professionally done.

It is obvious that the producers have gone to much effort to produce a quality movie with a strong plot and good morals. As parents of 3 small children, we appreciate when companies put family-friendly movies in theaters! Many times we do not attend movies because there are too many things we do not want to expose our children to. But it is such a treat when we can all enjoy a movie together. Thanks for putting out a great movie, and we hope it will come to our area soon!

Fun...in a so bad it's good way.

[mahoneyjame-741-943265 · 7/10 · 16 February 2016]

I can't really give it a low rating, even though I probably should. The script is bad, the dialogue is absolutely horrendous, the acting is bad, there's a lot of lapses in logic and the overall execution is pretty unrealistic.

But the laughs are great. Everything about this movie is so over-the- top and ridiculous, that it eventually becomes comedy gold. If you enjoy so bad-they're good movies like The Room and Plan 9 From Outer Space, chances are you'll like Homeless for the Holidays.

I literally had to hold my laughter back because I didn't want to offend the people I was watching it with.

And the Award for Most Miserable Woman Goes To...

[Channeleven · 1/10 · 6 January 2022]

The mother in this was my only takeaway from this entire movie, and that's obviously not a good thing. Without the right reactions then we wouldn't get through various holiday movie cliches, and we wouldn't want that, now would we?

Have her complain about her husband not being home because of his job, and source of income? That's there. Have her complain about him not having a job, while you just sit on your behind less you relegated yourself to a stay-at-home housewife to prepare for this moment? That's the idea behind this movie after all.

It's like the powers that be set up an outline and wrote dialog based on it, rather than actually writing something with weight to it. It wouldn't be so bad, if it weren't for the occasional whiplash and foregoing of small plot points.

The thing about these Christmas movies is that the worst aspects of them always stick out. Only way to make this more prophetic is to refer to the mother as Karen.

As with many saccharine Christmas movies, there is little to offer here. Heck, the Christmas spirit is incredibly dull in this movie, so just tune in to Hallmark every Christmas, with so many movies there you're bound to find something enjoyable. Let this rot in obscurity.

The potential to touch people worldwide

[trompettekip · 21 October 2009]

I have heard many positive things about Homeless for the Holidays, and I would really like to see it! With the current state of the world economy and record numbers of people having lost their jobs, this movie is very relevant for our time. Homeless for the Holidays has already encouraged many people, and has the potential to inspire countless more, given the opportunity. This movie touches people, promotes community and brings people together in an effort to overcome our common financial struggles and remember what is truly valuable in life.

Theaters would be wise to seize the opportunity to get this movie playing in as many theaters as possible throughout the US -- it even has the potential to make a worldwide impact.