- Gus
As a kid, I often went to only two movie theaters to see the latest attractions. The most treasured of the two for me was a place called Cine 10, a small little theater with ten screens in the middle of a popular mall strip parking lot. It was often quiet and low in attendance but held up for a while before eventually closing in 2000. The theater was the dumping grounds of recent films, a place where late or cheap viewers and families can see a film before playing the waiting VHS game. I always hold it dearly cause it was the place where I fell in love with movie poster artwork, with the two best examples being the art-deco inspired The Rocketeer and the strange is-it-funny-or-horror? of Army of Darkness.
In 1993, while I was waiting for the feature film to play, I was greeted with a trailer that left an impact on me more so than the crappy main attraction. It was teaser for a film and it focused on a tall, goatee individual talking in front of a singing boys' choir. He was shouting out rapid-fire jabs at the Christmas holiday, bashing good will and fruitcake and wanted to focus on the important issues like getting the G.I. Joe with kung-fu grip. He then screamed at the kids to shut up before looking back with a smug expression. This was my first look at the comedian Denis Leary and The Ref.
Instead of being released around November or December, The Ref wasn't unleashed to the public until March 9, 1994. I didn't see it until my early teenage years and even till then, it took myself awhile just to figure out the easy to solve title. Yes, I was that stupid, thinking a ref was a slang term for a cat burglar.
The Ref was pretty much the best and most popular example of the anti-Christmas Christmas film until the later release of Bad Santa. As displayed in its teaser, done in the style of Leary's then-noteworthy MTV character, it shows the absolute moral corruption and general hatred of family and friends during the holiday season and that the gift and money only matters. However, the film also negates this thesis to explore what people really need in their life just to survive and keep their love alive.
Denis Leary plays Gus, a cat burglar who botches his escape after a heist in a rich Connecticut suburb. Left alone by his getaway driver, he takes a married couple hostage only to realize he chose poorly. Lloyd and Caroline Chasseur (Kevin Spacey and Judy Davis) have just came from a bitter meeting with their marriage counselor, on Christmas Eve no less, and they can't stop bickering and fighting. Even with constant threats of using his gun and tying them up all over their household, Gus is still forced to endure their spewing as his escape options dwindle further. To make matters worse, they have company coming for Christmas dinner.
The film is filled with a heavily mocking tone toward the appearance of Christmas, specifically the ideal location of it in the New England area. The opening consists of dolly and crane shots done in slow-motion around Christmas stereotypes (nativity scene, toy-shop window, charity bell-ringer). It looks like an out-of-date setting, straight out of a Hallmark card or a Norman Rockwell painting. Only till we zoom inside of the marriage counselor's office do we see the despair lying underneath. This hidden and volatile despair carries over the entire film as the majority of the film takes place indoors with people packed close together. It also follows the falling mental state of Caroline as she suffers from the friction between "being alive" and the suffocation.
Though screenwriters Richard LaGravenese and Marie Weiss wrote this specifically for the film screen, they actually seem to have made a theatrical play instead. Gus's inability to leave the Chasseur house and the town and his insistence of not letting anybody else leave draws similarities to the existential play No Exit. They also create the biggest suspense of the film not from Gus being allowed to leave but from the arrival of Lloyd's mother, played exceptionally by Glynis Johns. She is treated the same way as the famous theater character Tartuffe; Caroline and Lloyd argue over her moral status until the audience is finally treated to her in the second half. However, her entrance is ruined in a way by showing her along with rest of the Chasseur family in brief but humorous scenes as they head to the house.
There are some problems to the picture though. The viewer is treated to some outside storylines away from Gus and the Chasseurs that ultimately just end without much tension. They do bring up the moral corruption within the town, such as the very funny plot with the Lieutenant of the volunteer police force, but they don't impact the main protagonists except for one involving a trick-and-treating Santa Claus. The film's biggest error is the son of the Chasseurs, Jesse. He is simply a tool for the story, serving as the collateral for Gus over the Chasseurs and shoe-horning another moral at the end.
Of course, all this dramatic dissection of this film is a little much, though the film is very melodramatic in the second half. The Ref is always hilarious with its venomous one-liners and sour demeanor. Ted Demme's direction is well executed, with deliberate framing and staging to bring an extra force to the performances. A special mention also has to go to Christine Baranski, who plays the sister-in-law of Lloyd. She draws some of the biggest laughs as a mother easily seen now-a-days: willing to insult and hit their children in public but perfect in private. If you're looking for an alternate to Bad Santa and want to see Denis Leary during his prime years, make sure to check this film out. Especially with the family around.
TOMORROW'S ENTRY: Is there such a thing as a silent Christmas film? We head to a city in Belgium to see if it's true.
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