This is my first review, mainly to defend this movie. I've used IMDb for years to filter movies based on user reviews, but more importantly, critic reviews. My favourite movies are often those that receive average user reviews, but positive critic reviews; when the mainstream critics finally chime in, this movie will be no exception.It's always interesting to me when a movie receives mainly very high ratings and very low ratings. If you're a fan of Dark Comedy and can appreciate a movie that makes you think...this one is for you!

American cinema doesn't do ensemble that well very often, and it frequently gets punished at the box office, as well as by viewers and by reviewers, for even trying. This film pulls together a low-key cast with an intelligent script and ends up as a quirky, darkly humorous drama that unfolds over Christmas Eve. The characters are a motley crew of misfits and losers, stereotypical small-towners on the surface, with the obligatory pregnant woman arriving as a tv reporter from the big city. The actors, many of whom we're used to seeing in bigger roles where they tend to take up a lot of screen, give dialed-back performances that allow - even expect - the audience to fill in the subtext. And there's a fair bit of subtext lying behind and between the stripped-down dialogue: about power and corruption, war and trauma, family and gender roles, the nature of life's choices and the cold reality of death. This could be done as a stage play and it would be getting rave reviews that mentioned Tennessee Williams. I'm not used to seeing so much packed into a contemporary, for-the-masses movie, and I'm plainly not alone in that. The poor reviews may be due in part to an un-sparing execution that's cutting too close to the tragi-comic reality of the modern American south.

I thought this was going to be a crime comedy. The comedy is nowhere to be found. So let's call it a drama. It fails here too because the story seems so empty for over 90% of the film. At the last it makes an attempt to tie it all together in a dramatic way quite late...to no avail.. It's simply too empty for too long with too little too late. I wonder how this got the nod at all for a production. It is that senseless. No one really delivers a convincing performance here with so little to inspire. A complete mess I'd say with a ridiculous coda to the ending. I want my 90-minutes back.

A wildly uneven comedy with quite a few phoned in jokes and performances. Nonetheless it is alright and I would say Tim Allen's character and acting are fairly interesting and make the movie, at least, watchable. The film has quite a few stars such as Jessica Alba but really squanders the potential. This isn't a good movie, but it has a few profound moments and you'll get through it.