The Santa Project: The Ref

    

Not too far down the road, I'll be posting a piece about Italian film director Lucio Fulci and his Gates of Hell trilogy.  But right now I'm going to be talking about one piece of another trilogy.  A trilogy I like to call The Unleashing of Denis Leary's Talent trilogy.  Those 3 films are as follows:

Monument Ave.

Judgment Night

The Ref

The Ref is a great 1993 comedy that also fits into my Top 5 Christmas films list.  For posterity's sake, here are those:

Gremlins

Die Hard

The Ref

Grumpy Old Men

Black Christmas (1974)

The Ref feels like a traditional holiday film at the jump.  During the credits, you get a sweeping long take of an adorable Connecticut town warming up its Christmas Eve activities.  As the credits end, the camera swings up to a marriage counselor's office (a young BD Wong, for all you Jurassic Park and Law & Order: SVU fans) dealing with what must (God help him) be his final clients of the day.  These two venomous individuals are Caroline and Lloyd, played by a spellbinding Judy Davis and snarky Kevin Spacey (yeah. I know.).  Davis' performance is so wide-ranging and powerful, shredded with emotion, that it kind of pissed me off that she was passed over for an Oscar nom that year.  Truthfully, Its strength helps draw your attention away from Spacey.  Anyway, Caroline and Lloyd are on the back end of a 15 year marriage, and both are so gifted with the verbal jab, that there's no way they can possibly find a way to cooperate, much less mend. 

The Ref gains its momentum when Denis Leary botches a robbery, and is forced to abduct Lloyd and Caroline as a ride and eventually providers of a place to hole up while he resets.  Unfortunately for Leary's character, Gus, he has to try to balance his criminal escape while Caroline and Lloyd are practically tearing each others' throats out. This is all in the midst of waiting for Lloyd's family to arrive for an annual Christmas dinner gathering, and the return home of the couple's juvenile delinquent son. Also, our darling Connecticut town is on the lookout for Gus as the botched robbery is following him like the plague. 

The true joy of The Ref is not just the whip-smart dialogue, verbal repartee, (which explodes when Lloyd's annoying family arrives pushing Gus to the edge of madness) and sharp-as-hell casting, but its heart.  Gus seems to be just soft enough to inadvertently provide Caroline and Lloyd with the ability to truly see each other, but fashions himself into a sword to be used to defend themselves in ways they have been needing to do for many years against many people.  Miracle on 34th Street it aint, but The Ref definitely has enough holiday lift to warrant repeat viewings over the years. 

Or maybe I'm just a sick bastard who has known too many people like this, and likes to see just desserts given, even if in fictional form.