THIS CHRISTMAS - Blu-ray review

"This Christmas" is being billed as a new holiday tradition, but then again, every Christmas movie hopes to crack the rotation of holiday films that people watch year after year. I'm not sure this will be one of them, though. It's more soapy than snowy, it's so familiar that I could predict who was going to do what just by the way the characters were introduced in Act 1, and there are a few headsnappers you don't usually see in a holiday movie . . . like acts of violence.

In fairness, most of us are conditioned to react hesitantly when we hear a holiday movie is about family coming home. After "Home for the Holidays," "The Family Stone," and countless others that didn't even stand as tall as those cinematic Christmas presents, it's like, not again. But as pleasant a surprise as that Stoner film was, this one feels like a Lifetime TV movie with a little attitude tossed in.

Prestan A. Whitmore II directed this light drama about the Whitfields, a clan whose adult children haven't been home for four years. And when you see the suds that bubble up, there's no wondering why. The matriarch of the family is Ma'Dere, played by Loretta Devine, who appeared in a considerably more successful holiday film, "The Preacher's Wife" (1966), and most recently could be seen on TV's "Eli Stone" and "Grey's Anatomy." Her character might be a cliché, but Devine tries to play it with enough understatement to blunt the familiar, and she and her male lead, Delroy Lindo ("Lackawanna Blues," who plays her boyfriend, Joe) manage to anchor this production by their performances, even if they're unable to provide as much steadiness for their fictional family, who are walking basket cases.

Quentin Jr. (Idris Elba, "American Gangster") is the eldest son, a jazz musician who's followed in the footsteps of Quentin Sr., a musician who abandoned the family years ago. Quentin is pursued by a couple a bookie thugs who want to collect a big debt he owes, and encounters with them account for much of the violence. But in the "gimme a break" category, these two and Quentin pretend they're friends when the family catches them, and they're invited to spend Christmas with the Whitfields in the same house. Yeah, like that's ever gonna happen. And if so, that poor Quentin wouldn't have woke up to see the sun shine the next day. But that's another story, and one of this film's defects.

Other defects are the other characters' stories. I mean, must every single family member have something major going on in their lives? Next there's Claude, who's on leave from the Army (but it turns out he's actually A.W.O.L.), and his secret is that he has a white girlfriend who happens to be pregnant.

Melanie (Lauren London) provides a little "ho, ho, ho" for this holiday film, and is called on it by her sisters. She's in her seventh year of college because she changes her major with every boyfriend, one of whom she brings home with her.

Lisa (Regina King) is married to a cheating creep and tries to keep up appearances, though she's troubled by it and her sister, Kelli (Sharon Leal), a career woman with no personal life and no one to trouble her, keeps trying to get her to see that no man is better than a bad man.

Finally there's Michael called "Baby," who still lives at home and has secret dreams of becoming a singer, but of course he can't. He's the "baby" and besides, it would kill Ma'Dere if he left the way his no-account father did and the way that no-account Quentin did.

I think this is probably the first holiday movie I've seen where the characters go clubbing in the wee hours of the morning, and I know it's the only one I've seen in which somebody is whipped senseless with a belt as he comes out of the shower. I guess nothing says Christmas like a good ass-whoopin'. But this is a subject-matter complaint, and that will always be a matter of taste. What's more unfortunate is the soap opera construction and formulaic plot. And for all the contrived melodrama, things sure do resolve themselves with relative ease, quickness, and painlessness.

Sorry, but I'll stick with my current Christmas line-up of "Holiday Inn," "It's a Wonderful Life," "Elf," "A Christmas Story," and "The Preacher's Wife." "This Christmas" is rated PG for "comic sexual content and some violence." For me, though, whatever good feelings you get come at too high of a price.

Video:
I can't give you any information on the codec, but I can say that "This Christmas" looks very good in 1080p, with natural skin-tones and plenty of detail, even in dark scenes. There were no compression artifacts that I could tell, and while the grain was minimal "This Christmas" nonetheless manages to avoid that over-processed look.

Audio:
The featured audio is an English, French, or Portuguese Dolby TrueHD 5.1, with additional options in Spanish and Thai Dolby Digital 5.1 and subtitles in English, English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese (traditional), Chinese (simplified), Korean, and Thai. The sound, especially when the music kicks in--some of which, by the way, really stands out rather than blending in with the film--is clear as a silver bell, with a rich timbre and nice high-low coverage. The rear speakers get involved, too.

Extras:
The bonus feature worth watching is the cast commentary with King, Leal, and London, who give us just the right blend of insights, anecdotes, and behind-the-scenes moviemaking to make it interesting. There's some dead air, but by and large these three have a good time and bring us along for the ride. The only other bonus features are a handful of deleted/extended scenes that ought to have been cut, a "This Christmas" music video featuring Chris Brown, and a pretty standard making-of featurette.

Bottom Line:
A little too soapy for my tastes, "This Christmas" still features some warm and winning performances and a few surprising moments that I guarantee you'll never see in another Christmas movie. And some people will say that's a good thing.