1994 - THE REF, 2/3's of a great comedy

The Ref starts out with smarmy comedian Denis Leary as a burglar robbing upscale homes in Connecticut.   After almost getting caught by the police Leary takes a married couple hostage in order to hide out at their house on Christmas Eve.  Little does Leary know this is not just an ordinary married couple but a married couple with severe marital problems. As played by Judy Davis and Kevin Spacey they are at verbal war with each other and throw insults around like they are grenades. Leary ends up trying to keep the peace between them while planning his escape. 

There's lots of funny stuff going on here.   The mother in law played by British actor Glynis Johns is a nasty old battleaxe of a woman.  The son who is in military school is blackmailing school officials, the rest of the family that descends on the home for Christmas Eve dinner is a collection of upper class weirdos.

 The chief problem with this film is that all it starts to run out of gas about 2/3's of the way through.  Obviously since this is a mainstream Hollywood movie set at Christmas everyone is going to work out their issues, but these resolutions come just a little to fast and the comedic situations just seem to run out of gas as things get sillier and sillier.  This is kind of disappointing for what started out as a pretty smart comedy. 

 

Still the film is mostly enjoyable especially when it is satirizing this upper class bunch of white losers.  Denis Leary is a kind of take it or leave it comedian but I thought he was funny.  Judy Davis and Kevin Spacey are a great married couple from hell. 

The film was written by Richard LaGravenese and Marie Weiss.  The running time is 97 minutes.