‘NOTHING Like the Holidays” re-gifts you with all the family-gathering truisms of previous movies, this time told with a Puerto Rican accent. What’s Spanglish for “oy”?
The Rodriguez clan in Chicago (Mama and Papa played by Alfred Molina and Elizabeth Pena) is celebrating the return of an Iraq war veteran son (Freddy Rodriguez), the son who became a lawyer (John Leguizamo) and married a Jew (Debra Messing), and a daughter (Vanessa Ferlito) who is trying to make it in Hollywood.
The members of this strenuously “vibrant” family act appropriately colorful as Messing gets to stand around looking very white in her Burberry earmuffs. “Oh my God,” she says, “the colors in this room are giving me a migraine.”
Her mother-in-law demands grandchildren, but she refuses because she’s all professional and stuff. Supposedly she manages a $300 million hedge fund, which should yield a few bucks to pay for a nanny.
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Everyone goes caroling in what turns into a boisterous street parade, but although the soundtrack swells with “O Come All Ye Faithful,” none of the actors appears to be singing.
Dialogue? “You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved,” “It was either him or me,” “You still got it, Mamita,” “You stick it through, but at the end of that, you fall in love all over again, and that’s marriage.”
We see Molina in his underpants. We see Leguizamo in his underpants. Someone has a dark secret; someone else has a beef with the neighborhood gangsta. “God is punishing me,” says the matriarch. Not just you.
NOTHING LIKE THE HOLIDAYS Nothing like entertainment. Running time: 99 minutes. Rated PG-13 (adult themes, sex and drug references). At the E-Walk, the Orpheum, the Magic Johnson, others.