Lagging two weeks behind “This Christmas” in timing, and much farther behind it in accomplishment, “The Perfect Holiday” arrives as the second African-American family comedy this season. Despite some star names in the cast, it’s mostly a bust.
The story is straight out of sitcomland: romance between a single mom, Nancy (Gabrielle Union), and an aspiring songwriter, Benjamin (Morris Chestnut), temporarily working as a department-store Santa.
The gimmick is that Benjamin first approaches Nancy because her daughter had told Santa Claus that mom would love to hear from an interested man. But Ben can’t tell Nancy that, because it’s a little creepy. And he can’t tell her he’s a songwriter, because her ex-husband is a famous rap star, and it might look like … well, it’s complicated.
Those complications are laborious to unravel, even though writer-director Lance Rivera painstakingly maps it all out. What’s worse, there’s a feeble framing story, in which a Christmas Angel (Queen Latifah, who also helped produce) comments on the action, counterpointed by a sourpuss Scrooge (Terrence Howard).
The movie has a flat look and a less-than-credible approach to human behavior (including Nancy’s three children, who mug it up outrageously). Oddly enough, the film actually gets funnier as it goes along, if not better.
Reliable comic actors are part of the reason. Faizon Love gets some yocks as a plus-size elf (he was quite funny in Will Ferrell’s “Elf,” too), and Charles Q. Murphy (unmistakably Eddie Murphy’s brother) wrings unsubtle humor from the role of the vain, self-centered ex-husband.
Most engagingly, there’s Katt Williams, the diminutive comedian and actor, who threatens to take over scenes whenever he’s around. He plays a supporting role, as Murphy’s record producer, but he’s got such sure-handed comic instincts that you wish the movie would just be about him.
It’s almost, but not quite, enough to put the movie over the top. Nothing against Gabrielle Union and Morris Chestnut, both capable veterans at this kind of thing (that Union hasn’t become a huge movie star is a Hollywood shame), but stick with “This Christmas” if it comes down to a choice.
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