Deck The Halls

by Robbo

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Posted on 12 December 2021

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Rating -

Deck the Halls is a 2006 American Christmas comedy film directed by John Whitesell, written by Matt Corman, Chris Ord, and Don Rhymer, and starring Danny DeVito, Matthew Broderick, Kristin Davis, and Kristin Chenoweth.

In Cloverdale, Massachusetts, Steve Finch (Broderick) considers himself a Christmas expert, the go to guy for Yuletide spirit. He wants his family to have a great Christmas but likes to do things by the book, everything is planned and organised in advance. From taking Christmas card pictures in matching sweaters to his own Christmas tree plot with five years worth of trees.

Then Buddy Hall (DeVito) and his family move in next door. Buddy is a brash, loud mouthed salesman who can never settle at anything. He gets bored easily and constantly flits from job to job dragging his long suffering wife, Tia (Chenoweth) and family from town to town. Buddy feels like he hasn’t achieved anything in life and wants to do something that is meaningful.

Having been shown that his is the only house in the neighbourhood that cannot be seen on satellite photographs, he decides that his goal is for his house to be seen from space. Buddy starts to decorate his house with Christmas lights and as the display grows larger it starts to attract the attention of the whole town and people start travelling from all over to view the display.

This irritates Steve and his envy towards Buddy grows as he thinks Buddy is usurping him as ‘Mr Christmas’. This leads to the two of them becoming embroiled in a bitter battle.

I really wanted to like this film but found it extremely hard as both of the main protagonists are not particularly likeable. Buddy is quite reprehensible, probably the worst character DeVito has played, and Steve is just whiny and petty so I didn’t really care who comes out on top.

The story is ridiculous, the script is flat and for a Christmas comedy it lacks any real humour.

Deck The Halls does nothing to put you in the Christmas spirit and is really a waste of such a talented cast.

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