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The Ref Reviews
No matter how clever the script sometimes is, the laughs elicited by this movie are cheap, tinny sitcom laughs.
Often cited by many as a favorite Christmas film. Why? Because it depicts family ties at its most honest and painful, which is closest to the truth of what and who we are, especially in the midst of fake cheer of the holidays. W/Pat&Ken At the Holidays!
Demme and the screenwriters take care to fill out the scenario with vividly drawn characters such as Raymond J. Barry’s sardonic police chief and Robert Steinmiller Jr.’s Jesse.
If you are in the mood for something different at Christmas than The Ref might be a fun choice for you.
A film so bleak even Krampus had to watch "Elf" immediately afterwards to regain his Christmas spirit. Rude, loud, funny and (apart from the home invasion by a gun-toting jewellery thief bit), pretty realistic about families and the festive season.
It's not just a Denis Leary vehicle. It's a real movie, with drama and grace and intelligence (and slapstick and drunk Santa gags and crude laughs).
A genuinely hysterical anti-holiday comedy.
It's miraculous casting, and the Australian Davis -- for my money the finest actress around, bar none -- is simply uncanny in her command of East Coast gentility combined with razor-sharp timing and comedic expression.
The Ref benefits from having actor's actors like Davis and Spacey in the leads.
This is a funny idea, but the movie is too thinly written to build any real credibility, and the cast rarely seems in tune with the vapid vulgarities that dominate the dialogue.
It's not a bad idea, but it's not a good movie, either.
Whether it's a function of sloppy editing or sloppy writing, few of these supporting players and their accompanying subplots pay off.
The Ref is a powerfully funny adult comedy. It skewers marriage, suburban values and the trendy belief that everyone is a victim of something.
The trouble with The Ref is that it keeps running out of steam, so it seems to develop a new plot wrinkle every seven minutes. Typically, it'll run through the new idea until it runs out of steam again, then invents yet another one.
While director Ted Demme seems to be trying to impose a Home Alone tone, he only succeeds in lending an air of desperation, with lame subplots blundering into the picture.
A foulmouthed sitcom of a film.
The Ref works virtually none of the miracles of [Richard LaGravenese's screenplay for The Fisher King,] his previous mix 'n' match effort.
What makes most of this work is the brio of the acting, though the direction by Ted Demme and the script by Richard LaGravenese and Marie Weiss certainly don't hurt.
In his first starring role, comedian Leary makes his ranting career criminal strangely sympathetic.
The Ref is the one Christmas movie that I can relate to.