After bomb after bomb, can Ben Affleck resurrect his career with a new comedy role? Or will his career not be able to survive, Surviving Christmas?
Drew Latham (Affleck) is a marketing genius, he has his own company and tons of cash, but when his girlfriend dumps him right before Christmas, he is left alone. Not wanting to be alone on Christmas, he offers Tom Valco’s (James Gandolfini) family a large sum of money to pretend to be his family for a traditional family Christmas.
Money talks, and Tom and his family, agree to do whatever Drew wants in order to earn a big payday. Comedy is supposed to ensue, as the family gets all wacky in order to please the eccentric Latham.
To call this movie just stupid would be too nice; it is an absurd mismatch of comedy, with a number of actors who should not be doing comedic roles, trying to be funny.
Ben Affleck trying to do something different from his normal action or dramatic roles, once again fails miserably. In a recent interview, Affleck said that the crux of the film was him trying to annoy James Gandolfini; not only does he do that, he annoys the audience as well.
Affleck trying to be a charismatic, wacky business man does not work. I couldn’t have cared less about his character. This role would have been far better suited for a Jim Carrey or Will Ferrell, who were smart not to sign up for this disaster.
Gandolfini is one of my favorite actors, and the “Sopranos” is one of the best TV shows ever and he plays a very similar character to Tony Soprano in this film, but it does not work, and his talent is wasted.
In what only I can assume is an attempt to play off the dysfunctional Christmas success of last year’s Bad Santa Surviving Christmas fails. Holiday movies are normally a guarantee to do some box office, but this Christmas movie is being released in October? Another bad decision for a bad film, which should never have been released to begin with.
