The Christmas Star

Disney is releasing this Yuletide classic Sept. 7, 2004.

One of the truly great Christmas films. Ed Asner, Fred Gwynne, Rene Auberjenois, and writer/ director Alan Shapiro and his talented crew make this Dickens-esque family perennial a must-see. If you like "A Christmas Carol", "Miracle on 34th St.", you will also love "The Christmas Star". Originally made for Disney's Sunday Night Movie, it has run for years on X- Mas but, unfortunately, was never released on video -- until now.

Do yourself a favor and get a copy!

Convicted con artist Ed Asner escapes from prison dressed as Santa Claus. He hides out in the basement of an apartment building where two kids live who believe he's the real Santa. He uses them to help recover some money he hid before he went to prison. As he spends time with the kids and their friends, he softens and slowly starts to understand the true meaning of Christmas.

Ed Asner is gruff but likable. That pretty much sums up his career. The kids are good, particularly the adorable little blonde girl. Rene Auberjonois is the obligatory Scrooge character. Fred Gwynne's the cop on the case. He's always fun. Susan Tyrrell has one great scene but I wish she was in it more. I'm not entirely sure why Asner's character didn't immediately shave and find a change of clothes to help evade capture but I guess we wouldn't have had a movie then. And how about that prison? They have the dumbest guards imaginable. Dude just literally walked up to the door and asked to be let out. Still, it's a good TV movie with nice humor and sentimental touches. Corny at times but appropriately so. Gets better as it goes along so stick with it.

What I love the most about Christmas its that their his lots of old movie like this one on TV. It just finished an hour now and I wanted to write about it before I think of something else. This is a lovely film and it confirmed what I knew since a long time,That Barret Oliver was the greatest child actor their was during the 80's,He his so natural.Even now compare him to Haley Joel Osmend and you can see that Barret was even better. Anyway, the film his simple but it work,after the credit roll you feel happy and full of hope for mankind. It's a shame that they dont do Christmas movie like this anymore.

Have said more than once how much Christmas is such a special holiday for me and that there are a lot of great things related to Christmas in terms of films and specials. Another reason for seeing 'The Christmas Star' was the cast, hard to go wrong with the ever reliable Ed Asner and the regrettably recently late Rene Auberjonois. Both of whom hold nostalgic value for me, especially Auberjonois from having grown up with primarily his voice work.

1986's 'The Christmas Star' may not be my definition of a great film, there are far better Christmas films and better films overall (though certainly far worse as well) and not everything works. It is though entertaining and charming enough, reminds me of what makes me love Christmas so much (for reasons too numerous to list) and definitely worth seeing if a fan of Asner or Auberjonois or both, the two main attractions of the cast by quite some way being by far the two biggest names.

'The Christmas Star' looks quite good with some nice scenery and photography that doesn't look garish or murky. The soundtrack is nostalgic and suitably festive, ageing quite well. The script mostly is quite entertaining and avoids being too awkward, not awards-worthy but that is something that one shouldn't expect. On the most part, the direction is competent.

Furthermore, the story avoids generally the cheesy or too schmaltzy route, parts are quite heart-warming and touching, even if it is a long way from being perfectly executed. Some nice humour here too. The story is charming and entertaining enough, while not being overly-predictable. Asner, as the only character that is properly developed, is in a role absolutely perfect for him (the gruff and likeable sort, though he did do some against type roles that he came off very well in) and he plays the role with adept ease. Auberjonois is also perfectly at ease in his role without being too camp. Fred Gwynne, also very talented, also comes over well as he is fun to watch and is well-suited.

All that set aside though, the rest of the cast don't really stand out. The kids over-egg it in roles already quite exaggerated and the rest of the characters are too sketchy for the rest of the cast to do much with what they have. Nobody's awful as such, but only the three veterans mentioned stand out properly.

Not all the story works, the surreal-feeling going too overboard in the final third done in a way that came over as more strange rather than intriguing and the cohesion wavers, actually found the final third a bit muddled personally but maybe that's just me. Also felt that the film got a bit rushed at this point too which did affect the cohesion, and some will be put off by the incompetence of the prison guards which is more of a subjective opinion.

Overall, quite decent but not great. 6/10

It's a shame that this movie isn't available on DVD (or VHS, for that matter). Thankfully, I did tape it on VHS (commercials & all) when it last aired. Truly a wonderful film, it made remember some of those "warm & fuzzy" feelings that I used to have about Christmas when I was a child. A Disney © production, maybe someday it will be available for purchase...