Jingle All the Way

Directed by Brian Levant, Jingle All the Way follows Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Howard Langston as he goes to increasingly extreme lengths to procure a popular action figure for his son (Jake Lloyd’s Jamie) on Christmas Eve. Filmmaker Levant, working from Randy Kornfield’s screenplay, delivers a mostly frenetic comedy that ultimately fares best in its briskly-paced and thoroughly agreeable opening half hour, and it’s clear, certainly, that the movie benefits substantially from Schwarzenegger’s go-for-broke turn as the progressively frantic central character – with the actor’s larger-than-life performance undoubtedly elevating the proceedings on an all-too-frequent basis. (It’s impossible, for example, not to get a kick out of Howard’s ongoing confrontations with Phil Hartman’s sketchy, smarmy neighbor.) There’s little doubt, then, that Jingle All the Way‘s overall impact is dulled significantly by a hit-and-miss midsection that is, particularly in the second half, more miss than hit, as Levant suffuses the narrative with a heaping handful of elements that are, to put it mildly, less than engrossing. (This is especially true of Sinbad’s grating, obnoxious work as Howard’s tenacious rival for the aforementioned action figure.) By the time the aggressively action-packed finale rolls around, Jingle All the Way has cemented its place as a relentlessly erratic comedy that would, in the end, hardly be worth mentioning were it not for Schwarzenegger’s consistently engaging and entertaining efforts.

**1/2 out of ****