I am having a conversation with Bud, who also writes for this site, about going to see this movie ‘This Christmas’.  Bud has a habit of selling me out for these screenings for one reason or another and ‘This Christmas’ was directed by Detroit’s own Preston Whitmore II (not jr.) who also directed the terminable ‘Doing Hard Time’ and the abominable ‘Crossover’, easily one of the worst movies of 2006.  So Bud asks what’s the greater likelihood?  Him NOT selling me out for the screening of ‘This Christmas’ or the chances ‘This Christmas’ will not suck ass.  It was toss up but Bud DID sell me out for the screening of ‘This Christmas’, however ‘This Christmas’ not only didn’t suck, but it was damned entertaining.  Damned entertaining. 

It’s Christmas in California and the Whitfield clan is converging for their annual get-together.  Mama Whitmore (Loretta Devine) hustles her long time live-in companion Joe (Delroy Lindo) to hurry and get out the house so that mama can continue to put on the façade that they aren’t really living together.  The clan, and it’s a big one, consists of eldest brother and wayward troubled music man Quentin Jr. (Idris Elba), hardworking honest and bitter sister Lisa (Regina King) married to the unfaithful and controlling Malcolm (Laz Alonzo), the beautiful but selfish professional model Kelli (Sharon Leal), hot headed marine Claude (Columbus Short), free spirited professional student Mel (Lauren London), baby daddy to the masses Troy (Ricky Harris) and the late in life accident Michael (Chris Brown).  To get into everyone’s issues individually would require a copy of the script so we’ll go ahead and let that go, but recognize that everybody has problems.

Though the problems range from the severe to the silly, there will still be some good food to be eaten, lots of fine music to listen to and fun folks cutting a rug while all the while attempting to find the meaning of family and resolve all these problems before the final credits roll as a only a feel good movie can.

Though I am loathe to insult a man just to compliment a man, but if you’ve never seen ‘Crossover’, you may want to watch it before watching this to see why I had such shallow hopes for ‘This Christmas’.  Though I used this line in another review, I’m too lazy to think of another example thus ‘This Christmas’ is to ‘Crossover’ what ‘Raging Bull’ is to ‘Kazaam’.  The differences in the quality of the two films aren’t night and day, its Earth to Pluto.  There’s a detailed review on the site for ‘Crossover’ so we will mercifully let that film be and focus on the fun to be had with ‘This Christmas’, and that’s what makes this film special is that it’s a lot of fun to watch.  It seems that everybody on the set was having a good time making this film and that enthusiasm exudes from the screen to viewer.  At its core this is a typical family drama that really offers nothing new or terribly unique, but the characters are fresh, attractive and engaging and Whitmore has written a script filled with sharp, quick, and clever dialog and placed these words in the possession of actors with the talent to deliver what the director was looking for.

Your enjoyment of this film may also be affected by how big a Chris Brown fan you are.  If you don’t know who Chris Brown is then obviously you are not a fan, but the young R&B singer blesses the film with two rather lengthy vocal sets that fans of his will certainly swoon over.  I’m not one for modern popular music, considering my Archos (boo Ipod) is loaded with Rick James, Whodini and Duran Duran (you got something to say?) so my swoon factor was pretty low, but the kid can sing and I didn’t mind his long sets too much.  With so many characters with so many problems all going on the same time you would think that the story would be confusing or chaotic, and though there was chaos, it was tightly controlled chaos with Whitmore able to somehow keep the divergent storylines in a coherent harmony further enhancing the enjoyment of this film.  One more thing that was interesting about ‘This Christmas’ is that no actor in the ensemble cast ‘stood out’ in this film.  I mean you’d be hard pressed to surpass the beauty of a Sharon Leal or the majesty of a Delroy Lindo, but the performances were uniform in their excellence.  I really can’t say enough good things about this film.

I’m not saying this ‘This Christmas’ was perfect and I had some problems with certain aspects of the narrative but I’m not going to get into all of that because then we’d be getting a little nit-picky and that’s just not our way.  At least not today.  There was a lengthy Soul Train line dance number at the end of the film with the cast, not the actors because the actors were finished doing their acting thing, but the actual actors, and that's something that I would rather have seen on the DVD extras.  Plus if you don’t like to drink gallons of melodrama then you may also have some problem with this film as it pours on the melodrama like Mrs. Butterworth’s on hot pancakes.  But always remember that you’re only as good as your last game as they say and yesterday I thought Preston Whitmore II (not Jr.) was a horrible director.  Today I think he’s a pretty good one.  Tomorrow…?  Well we’ll have to wait and see, but today the man just hit for the cycle.