By Geno McGahee
I was sort of optimistic about I’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS because James Brolin not only starred in it, but he also directed it. That can be a good sign. That means he believed in the project and put his all into it and when you add in that Mena Suvari is in it, this had the potential to be a real winner. The AMERICAN PIE girl and the AMITYVILLE HORROR guy together at last. Who could ask for more?
Jack Foster (Brolin), a retired detective, drives a big piece of shit camper and drives to his friend’s funeral. I was happy to see Brolin back. I just assumed he’s been away from acting since AMITYVILLE HORROR but he’s got 141 IMDb acting credits. I guess I was wrong.
In the meantime, Jackie (Suvari), an attorney, gets some road rage going when Detective Mike (John Reardon) steals her parking spot. As you know with any Hallmark movie, the couple that gets together always fights in the first scene. They should change that up somehow. There has to be another way to put some conflict in there outside of having them fight immediately. For instance, had they gotten together immediately and then Jackie goes to his place and has a line like “I’m not comfortable with your adult film collection,” you’d have some believable conflict that can be resolved by him throwing away the creepy VHS tapes and sticking strictly to the internet sites.
As fate would have it, Jack and Mike are very close. Both were on the force and Jack was a mentor to him, but he was neglectful of his daughter. The relationship with Jack has haunted Jackie forever, but she’s moved on and has her own life with her daughter, Gracie (Giselle Eisenberg), and boyfriend, Rand (Jacob Blair), a guy that starts off as the ideal boyfriend but somehow turns into a huge piece of shit in the movie. I think the writer realized that she can’t be with both Mike and Rand and I have to get rid of Rand somehow. Time to make him a douchebag and quick!
Jack shows up in Jackie’s driveway in that huge camper and it doesn’t go well. She is ready to kick his old ass out of there, but that’s when Gracie pipes in and asks her Grandpa to stay with them until after Christmas. She calls him “Grandpa Grinch” and Jack immediately knew that his daughter was talking shit about him. Gracie is unlikable and unbelievable and I don’t usually think that about children in films unless it’s THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE with that “you can do it sis” kid. Other than that, I usually give kids a break in film, but Gracie was not written well at all. Her dialogue was so bad and unnatural…not that the rest of the film was written well, but what they wanted from this character they didn’t get.
The relationship between Jack and Gracie is keeping him at the home and Jackie is starting to hit it off with Mike, but is still dating Rand. Unfortunately, Rand is becoming a total asshole. He orders her food at a restaurant and notes that that’s the way it’s done with his family. He then finds a new job for her. The writer decided that wasn’t enough and threw in that he comes from a rich asshole family and they are buying a historic fire station and tearing it down. That fire station is where they hold the annual Christmas party every year in town. AND that wasn’t enough. He also chuckled when he found out that Jackie volunteers at the homeless shelter. They should have went all in and had him say “you’re volunteering there with those smelly scumbags?” But, I guess they established he’s not a nice guy to the satisfaction of the writer.
So, Jack takes Gracie to go and adopt a dog that used to belong to his dead buddy, but it’s already been adopted by a woman that has a very young daughter. Jack tricks the young kid out of the dog, telling her that it’s not a good dog to have as a pet. What an asshole dickhead Jack is. He’s an absentee father and a guy that has no reservations about breaking the heart of a young girl and stealing her dog.
Jack goes to the police station and starts telling everyone how to do their job. What the fuck are they doing? Why are they allowing this retired asshole to work on cases and push everyone around? On top of that, he chases a petty thief in a Santa suit through the streets with his dog. That dog nearly mauled the wallet thief and the cops just take him away. Jack had no business chasing him down and certainly not having his dog pounce on him.
Rand is dumped, Mike and Jackie is a new thing and Jack is now “dad” again. This is a really boring and pointless movie. With Hallmark, you get a lot of fluff films that you sort of put on in the background and you don’t get much from, but this film had some decent stars and they would have made it good if the material they had was better.
I’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS is terrible and dull as hell. I wanted to shut it off several times, but I forged on and got through it so I could review it for my Xmas holiday film review spree. I don’t think Brolin should direct anymore. If you have a shitty screenplay like this, you got to make the performances really shine, but everyone just went through the motions.
Well, this is one of the worst Hallmark Christmas movies I’ve seen. I don’t recommend it at all. They should have used the AMITYVILLE HORROR tagline for anyone sitting down to watch this film: FOR GOD’S SAKE, GET OUT!
