Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Red Hour Films, 21 Laps Entertainment,
Bryan Cranston, James Franco, Zoey Deutch, Megan Mullally, Griffin Gluck, Keegan-Michael Key, Zack Pearlman, Casey Wilson, Andrew Rannells
The Fleming family, Ned Fleming (Bryan Cranston), kind Dad whose old school print business is struggling, but is trying hard to succeed. Barb Fleming (Megan Mullally) Mom who has no clue that her husband’s business is in trouble, Scotty Fleming (Griffin Gluck) young teen son who is trying to be cool, but doesn’t understand, and Stephanie Fleming (Zoey Deutch) who is attending Stanford University and about to graduate, are all looking forward to the holidays. But Stephanie has a plan. She’s been dating a secret boyfriend, Laird Mayhew (James Franco) and wants to surprise the family to spend Christmas in California and meet her new boyfriend. But what she doesn’t know is that Laird is planning to ask her to marry him and being a nice guy wants to ask Ned for his blessing first. But Laird is a REALLY unusual guy and Ned is a bit over-protective, so just about everything that can go wrong, does go wrong until it looks like the whole family is about to go back to Michigan and come completely apart before the big Christmas Day.
This is a raucous comedy full of very over the top raunchy comedy that is off the chain! This is a very funny movie, but written by Jonah Hill and Produced by Ben Stiller, this is certainly a mature comedy. The comedy, though, fires on all cylinders and is very laugh out loud funny throughout. I really enjoyed Cranston as the uptight over-protective father, and Franco is hysterically funny in this role. This kind of role really suits him, and though I’ve seen some sketchy performances from him in the past when he’s out of his element, this is the role he was born to play. Everyone else is loads of fun too, and everyone gets punch lines throughout, so everybody is really having a great time. Some of this is so ludicrous, but still so darn funny. Very well put together by people who really get comedy, this was a very funny film, and if you don’t mind the strong “Borat-like” R rating, give it a shot. It was really a crack up.
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