gavin6942 A cat burglar is forced to take a bickering, dysfunctional family hostage on Christmas Eve.After Ted Demme directed comedian Denis Leary in "No Cure for Cancer", a stand-up comedy special for Showtime, they got the script for "The Ref" and decided to do it. Makes sense that Leary would come on board as part ofa package deal. He was not so much known as an actor at the time. Good thing he got on board, too, as his character is the film's redeeming feature.Well, that and the big screen debut of J. K. Simmons. What Simmons was doing up until this time is unclear (a debut at age 40 is unusual), but it is good to see him start out strong, right alongside the amazing Kevin Spacey.

Andrewamphlett Brief storyline of the film, the plot idea is relatively simple; Denis Leary plays Gus a professional burglar who after a foiled robbery seeks to make good his escape by taking married couple Lloyd and Caroline Chasseur hostage. Lloyd (played by Kevin Spacey) and Caroline (played by Judy Davis) are however going through something of a marriage crisis and poor old Gus ends up playing referee between the two warring factions of this married couple. Add in a delinquent son, a mother-in-law of humongous bitchy proportions and a drunken Santa Claus and let the mayhem begin! I have to say that the interplay between Learn, Spacey and Davis is simply fantastic with the machinegun like dialogue whizzing back and forth between them, my favourite quote from the film is Leary's character and he said "From now on, the only person who gets to yell is me. Why? Because I have a gun. People with guns get to do whatever they want. Married people without guns - for instance - you - DO NOT get to yell. Why? NO GUNS! No guns, no yelling. See? Simple little equation." The black humour of the film is just brilliant and it's actually what you would expect from Kevin Spacey and Denis Leary film with past films like "Swimming with Sharks" With likewise the stingingly cruel comments from the mother-in-law from hell are a real hoot, as is the bumbling capers of the town's less than competent police force. What makes the film work on another level though is that the arguments and disagreements that have the family at each other's throats are not contrived or unbelievable. Both husband and wife put forward extremely credible points of view that I'm sure having cropped up in the minds of most viewers. This gives the film a lovely poignancy and all that more enjoyable.Overall, I found this a very funny movie. Judy Davis and Kevin Spacey bounce off each other hilariously, and I found Denis Leary's character just brilliant (and is now one of my favourite comedian) The script is original, the humour is dry, sarcastic and 'laugh out loud' good for a black-comedy so Great stuff!

suvoth I love this movie! I watched it when it first came out and subsequently watch it every holiday. It is the funniest Christmas movie out there in my opinion and no one but Leary could have pulled off Gus. Fantastic! Not for children,due to the swearing, but make this your own Christmas tradition and watch it every year! Fantastic! Every tradition starts somewhere! The acting is just that good that you want to see it repeatedly. I wish they would make another one actually, I think it would do really well if the same actors could reprise their rolls. It surprises me that a lot of people have never even heard of this movie. I lent it out to a coworker and she loved it too. It's certainly a little unknown gem.

D_Burke "The Ref", simply put, was a very funny movie. I liked it a lot, and there were parts which I laughed out loud at. It had a very original premise, unlikeable but intriguing characters, and the timing was pitch perfect in many areas.This movie could be considered "Bad Santa" before there was "Bad Santa". Admittedly, however, "Bad Santa" was a film with a much darker sense of humor, and there are elements of movies like "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" in this film. Regardless, this movie is just funny, and is far better than many of the facetious holiday movies that have come out in recent years, including "Deck The Halls" and "Christmas With The Kranks". I don't think it ever intended to be considered a Christmas movie anyway. The point of the movie seemed to parody both expectations during the holiday season that can't be met, and marriage counseling in general. The movie achieved both major points very well.For starters, this movie is probably Denis Leary's only starring role to date. He doesn't really play a character here, or at least he plays his famous comic persona again: a sarcastic, pessimistic, chain-smoking, loud-mouthed, short-tempered, altogether angry dude. He's a professional thief, and spends the entire movie not only trying to get away with a botched robbery, but also to try to get everyone around him in control. Amazingly, in this movie, he's the most sane character, and that unusual scenario is what makes the movie so good.Kevin Spacey was not an unknown actor per se when this movie came out, but he was not as well known as he is now, nor was he a household name. Anyone who watches this movie after 1999 will notice that Spacey plays an almost mirror image of Lester Burnham, his Oscar-winning role in "American Beauty". It's difficult to say which role was funnier, but in a movie that preceded "American Beauty" by over five years, Spacey plays his deadpan sarcasm humor very well. He also has some very funny lines in a role that probably didn't initially require his character to be funny.This movie had so many comic elements and various subplots that seemed to pile onto one another. In a lot of ways, it was good how an unusual scenario (being held hostage on Christmas Eve) weaved so well into usual ones (annoying in-laws visiting). That said, there were a few subplots which didn't quite fit. There was the drunk Santa that seemed a bit out of place, and was probably borrowed from a much worse movie. Other than his Santa costume which came in handy near the end of the film, that character didn't really seem to contribute much to the movie, and seemed a little bit like a cheap plot device. Including his character in the movie was like adding a Smiley sticker to Van Gogh's "Starry Night" painting.Also, the movie ended a little too quickly, and a bit more inconclusively than it probably should have. There were so many loose ends in regards to the supporting characters at the end that really needed to be tied up. Watching this movie, the characters really grew on you, so for the movie to end like it did felt disappointing at the least.Still, despite these relative weaknesses, the movie was very good and worthy of being considered a cult classic. The DVD of this movie was released in 1999, and has absolutely no special features of any kind. Really, though, the movie didn't need it. Of course, a commentary track by Denis Leary and Kevin Spacey would have been nice, but the movie itself is fun to watch.