Scrooged ranks amongst the bleakest and most sarcastic Christmas films ever made. It transmutes A Christmas Carol into the soulless, frenetic commercialism of 1980s America. On paper, this change in setting and the lead casting of Bill Murray should combine for a slam dunk. In reality, this modernized Scrooge only works in fits and starts. Strangely enough, the best moments of this Christmas dirge lie in its throwaway moments. The more Scrooged runs from itself, the better it is.
Anyone who’s encountered any version of A Christmas Carol will recognize this story from ten miles away. Frank Cross (Murray) is a snarky, boozy TV executive. As Christmas approaches, Frank struts around his office like an overcaffeinated peacock. He casually fires employees and slashes holiday bonuses. Grace (Alfre Woodard), his long-suffering assistant, can only stare in crestfallen disbelief. Frank even chooses ugly, dehumanizing commercials to air during Christmas. (You know what this ad needs, atomic explosions!)
As you might guess, Frank is ripe for a spiritual makeover. The festering corpse of Lew (John Forsythe), Frank’s odious and greedy mentor, arrives with the news we all know is coming: Tonight, Frank will be visited by three ghosts, each with a soul-stirring glimpse of the past, present, and future. Frank dismisses this supernatural encounter as some kind of rum-fueled fever dream. We’ve read Dickens, so we know better.
What follows is a surreal odyssey through Frank’s life. The Ghost of Christmas Past (David Johansen) arrives in a vintage taxi, ready to whisk Frank to his suburban upbringing. It seems that Frank’s childhood was not the 50s idyll it would appear to be: His father (Brian Doyle-Murray, Bill’s brother) is a cruel, cynical man who wants to “toughen up” his son and eschews the entire spirit of Christmas. Clearly, the seeds of Frank’s prickly, sardonic grouch are sown here. As Frank grows into a young man, we can also see how Frank’s burgeoning ambition causes him to piss away his relationship with Claire (Karen Allen), his one true love.
Things grow even more grim in the present. The Ghost of Christmas Present (Carol Kane) shows Frank how his ferocious greed destroys anyone around him. His callousness especially hits Grace, whose son is mute and traumatized. The boy needs extensive medical care, but Frank doesn’t even know the kid exists. We also meet Eliot (Bobcat Goldthwait), a disgruntled underling who quietly plots his revenge. Of course, this is all just prelude to undiluted ugliness from the Ghost of Christmas Future. He takes the form of Death and ushers Frank to the hollow demise that results from such a spiritually empty life.
As I said before, only bits and pieces of this journey are actually funny. I enjoyed Johansen’s performance, most of which emanates from his outsized Noo Yawk accent. That goes ditto for Bob Mitchum’s burly, intimidating network president. As always, John Glover is underrated as an unctuous corporate stooge. Otherwise, many of the film’s broad gags fall conspicuously flat. (Goldthwait’s character seems ported from a whole different movie.)
Still, Scrooged works best in sly little bursts of satire. A great example is the gag TV promo that opens the film, in which Lee Majors leads a commando-style rescue of Santa at the North Pole. (Majors even gets a moment to flirt with Mrs. Claus, because…you know, of course he does.) Or all the wacky cameos that adorn the network’s Christmas extravaganza. I won’t spoil them here, except to say they’re all gleefully straight from left field.
All this supports Murray’s later assertion that Scrooged could’ve been so much more. For all the mediocrity on display here, a much funnier film lurks in plain sight. At its brightest moments, the film tiptoes toward the unhinged silliness of The Naked Gun. That’s the Christmas gift we all deserve, with Murray as the anarchic master of ceremonies. Instead, all we get is the cinematic equivalent of tube socks.
100 min. PG-13. Amazon Video.
