A quest for Xmas spirit in 'Jingle All The Way'
By Parvathi Nayar Narayan
JAKARTA (JP): The year draws to an end, there's festivity in the air, school holidays -- and lots of parents seeking ways to entertain their children! Hollywood obliges with its bunch of holiday season movies.
There are a significant number of children's movies in Jakarta currently -- Space Jam, 101 Dalmatians and of course the most Christmassy of the bunch, Jingle All The Way.
Jingle All The Way has all the ingredients of Christmas: Santas and reindeer, fathers and sons, presents and parades, Christmas trees and carols. It's never quite clear though, what the viewer is meant to hear -- the all-too-real jingle of money or the mythical jingle of Santa's sleigh.
Arnold Schwarzenegger takes another stab at comedy as Harold, the super successful mattress-maker but not so successful father.
He's actually a well intentioned sort of chap, but is perennially late or absent from family events. The final straw, where son Jamie is concerned, is when Dad misses his karate graduation show.
In an effort to make up, does Harold promise a family outing or some type of father and son activity? Guess again. This is after all the age of commercial hype, of buying one's way out of trouble and responsibility. Harold promises to get his son the zeitgeist toy of the season, a Turbo Man doll with all the bells and whistles.
Whew, he thinks, got off easy on that one. But there's a nasty surprise in store -- all the stores have run out of Turbo Man. Worse, Harold finds he's an object of ridicule for being so out of touch with the trends of the time. What naivete to walk into a toy store on Christmas Eve and expect to find the year's most successfully marketed toy waiting on the shelves.
Thus begins an epic style adventure to track down the elusive doll, in which the Christmas spirit (loving, giving, sharing, that sort of thing) is somewhat missing. It's war and anything goes in the name of Turbo Man.
In a film that's a marketing person's utopia come true, a small selection of Turbo Man dolls are released in the market. At double the prices of course, chortle, chortle. Harold elbows, pushes, pulls and battles as well as the rest of them but chance prevents him from scoring here.
The story line is not as far fetched as one would like to imagine. One hears of favorite toys running out in stores around the world during Christmas and parents getting into guilt ridden frenzies. One of this year's favorites that is sold out and much sought after, apparently, is Buzz Lightyear, a character derived from the delightful film Toy Story.
Of course not everyone has a parent as determined as Harold. The saga continues in Jingle. Unfortunately so does the hero's moral "decline" when he stoops to some black market trading for Turbo Man. Luckily for his soul, this attempt also fails.
He succeeds, though, in earning some brownie points by bashing up the crime ring of fake Santas, headed by a virulent James Belushi.
He also matches wits and fists with Sinbad who plays Myron, a mailman on the same Turbo quest. With almost unconscious irony Myron refers to Christmas as the one chance in the year that parents have to redeem themselves in the eyes of their children. Myron, however, approaches his task with a zeal that borders on the fanatic at best, completely insane at worst.
Having already flexed his muscles on screen this year (Eraser), it would seem that Arnie has decided to unleash his second-most terrifying weapon in Jingle -- his smile.
Unfortunately, there's not quite enough of that either. Here's a corny plot line that's asking to be played for all the laughs it can get. Instead we have Arnie and others giving it all the weight and fervor usually reserved to battle dastardly aliens and save the universe from annihilation.
Which is not to say the film doesn't have its moments. Director Brian Levant (Mrs. Doubtfire and The Flintstones) does pull off some funny gigs and offers the odd wry comment. The film takes a sly dig at snags (sensitive new age guys) in the form of Ted, the too, too perfect neighbor. Phil Hartman creates an exquisitely ickily smarmy Ted, who's always there for his son, his neighbors, their sons and so on.
Ted also has an eye on neighbor Harold's wife, Liz. This leads to requests for cookie recipes, fixing lights on Howard's roof and taking video tapes of Jamie's karate performance. So insufferable is he that along with Harold, the audience too is rooting for his comeuppance.
The climax is set in a Christmas parade that is bound to appeal to children. After all, in partial defense of Jingle, it is a children's film. Actually, two young friends, Trishul aged eight and Turiya aged five, came along to see the film to give me their take on it. If the enjoyment with which they invented and played "Turbo" games after that were any sign, the film was a success!
Keeping the film's rampantly commercial message in mind, I asked with some nervousness what they remembered most about the film. "The bit in the end when his Dad dresses up as Turbo Man, that's what I liked best," said Trishul excitedly, disarming me and filling me with hope for the coming generation.