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In this middling family-friendly holiday flick from Disney, young Jonathan Taylor Thomas (TV’s Home Improvement, The Lion King) plays a swindling college student who gets stranded in the California desert glued into a Santa Claus outfit without money or identification. He has only two days to get home on the east coast in time for dinner on Christmas Eve. If he makes dinner on time, his dad’s going to give him the family Porsche. If not, no wheels. Making matters worse, his girlfriend (Jessica Biel) is forced to drive cross-country with a rival student douchebag (Adam LaVorgna) since Thomas isn’t there to pick her up in time.
I’ll Be Home for Christmas becomes an episodic, serendipitous comedy adventure, with Thomas conning his way into and out of one predicament after another, trying to get further across the country and catch up with his girlfriend and her less-than-honorable driver. It’s a saccharine, sentimental movie (Disney’s modus operandi for the ’90s), with Thomas’s character learning to become less materialistic and selfish over the course of his travels. Jonathan Taylor Thomas has charisma, but he never quite breaks free from the confines of the material to leave any lasting impression.
We’ve seen other comedy road trips and holiday movies that are funnier and more charming. But this one’s not without its moments. The best sequence is one in which Thomas helps a police officer (Sean O’Bryan) win back the heart of his waitress girlfriend (Lesley Boone) at a redneck steakhouse called ‘The Turf and Turf’. Andy Lauer is memorable as a dim-witted thief who ends up helping Thomas deliver stolen appliances to sick kids at a hospital.
Directed by Arlene Sanford (Desperate Housewives, Ally McBeal). With Gary Cole, Eve Gordon, Lauren Maltby, and Kathleen Freeman.