This Christmas

Hallmark cribbing

By CHRIS BRAIOTTA | November 20, 2007

1.5 Stars

VIDEO: Watch the trailer for This Christmas.

Christmas movies have always meant boring white people going home to settle lifelong resentments and eat ham. It’s only fair that black folks get a crack at re-enacting these insipid mechanics. As artificially homy as a plug-in air freshener, writer/director Preston A. Whitmore II’s This Christmas fills the bill. The unwieldy ensemble story has no fewer than six grown kids staying with mom (Loretta Devine), each cramming hangers-on and manufactured conflict into a bland, overstuffed lump. There’s not a single moment that doesn’t bristle with exposition and cliché — only Idris Elba as Quentin and Delroy Lindo as Joe give the film’s Hallmark cribbing anything resembling life. 117 minutes | Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + Suburbs

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Topics: Reviews , Entertainment, Movies, Delroy Lindo, More

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