"O Come All Ye Faithful!" It's that time of the year. Time to make the pilgrimage back home to the folks. Everyone has family and being home for the holidays is near universal comfort--or dilemma. This is one of the reasons why a film like this was released during the week of the Thanksgiving holiday comes early before the rush of the Christmas movie madness,and righteously so. Director/Writer Preston A. Whitmore II,taps into this common thread with verve as frothy as spiked eggnog. Whitmore's previous films were a formulatic sports movie Crossover(a disaster with the casting and the movie debut of Britney Spears)and the poorly conceived war film The Walking Dead. This time around and for good measure he's eschewed genre films for a family comedy/drama/romance that not only recalls his own experiences,but experiences from any and every family member that we come to know and love in the most joyous time of the year.The result is a tumultanous holiday fete with a very personal feel and beguiling flair that will carry audiences over some arrhythmatic pacing. For the first time in four years,the Whitfeld family flocks to its Los Angeles home that has more bedrooms than the White House. The family matriarch,Ma' Dere (Loretta Devine) still resides here,thanks to a family dry-cleaning business that's on its last leg. She has put her kids through college and continues to give her youngest son Baby (Chris Brown)a roof over his head. Lisa(Regina King)arrives with her two kids and two-timing,domineering husband Malcolm(Laz Alonzo),who pressures Lisa to convince the family to sell their dry cleaning business to used the family's money for a financial scheme. Malcolm's the moral enemy of Lisa's feisty-independent sister Kelli(Sharon Leal). Claude(Columbus Short)surprises everyone;he's on leave from the Marine Corps. Mel(Lauren London),a perpetual college student,brings her latest boyfriend Devan(Keith Robinson). And Ma'Dere's lover man,Joe(Delroy Lindo),is the gentleman of the house;although he's living there on the down low. Presents are wrappedd. Dinner plans are made. Barbs exchanged. Love is in the air. Jealously and envy too. In between the holiday greetings,family drama and tangled relationships emerge. This is when the film goes from family-friendly perspective into a black soap opera. Its changes too when the family goes from season's greetings to season's ghetto.Characters get bitten by the love bug in which Kelli falls for the Gerald,the firemen(Mekhi Phifer). While the eldest brother Quentin (Idris Elba),makes a guest appearance,this gives the house one more alpha male too many. Tempers flare. Words are said. Feelings are hurt. Thugs show up,unexpected. The police arrive. Half of the family members are arrested and thrown in jail. Merry Christmas! This a movie that has its sexy moments,but there is no nudity or offensive language. There is only a wisp of blood. Tangy enough to please an adult,but it is safe enough for the kids. With this many characters,and accompanying conflicts happening just around every corner,the excessive subplots weigh the film down especially with the cast the live-wires such as Loretta Devine,Regina King,Sharon Leal and Delroy Lindo. The only saving grace here that prevented this film from going into a fiasco was the acting debut of R&B sensation Chris Brown--who steals the show with his breathtaking rendition of a R&B Otis Redding classic. With other music from Aaron Neville,James Brown and Kool and the Gang,its worth watching.

I had to laugh at the fact that Loretta Devine played the family matriarch in this movie! It was never revealed to the family that she was still "married" to Senior while sleeping with Joe. Regina King's character waited too long to get revenge on that cheating husband. And why does someone always meet someone and fall in love instantly in the movies? We all knew that Quentin was going to come back at the end of the movie. And Chris Brown's character just happened to be singing at the club that all the siblings went to late at night. This movie couldn't be too bad with fly Lauren London, fly Sharon Leal, and Regina King in it. There were too many problems in this family. a corporal who went AWOL and married and got a white woman pregnant. A brother who owes bad guys $25,000 and gets beat up by them a lot. And many many more subplots!

this Christmas is a very very poor movie. It is very lame and the dialogues are pathetic and predictable. There is nothing amazing in this movie, nothing that would make me not regret $8.5 spent on the ticket. The cast was OK i guess but they did not do a great job. Basically it is another movie that will be forgotten in a couple of weeks. It is not funny and I do not know why someone would say it is a comedy. There is nothing interesting in it, the issues of the main characters are kind of forced upon them and seem just too general. We have all already seen it somewhere. If you set out to see the movie do not expect anything great from it. It is boring, dull and has a very poor happy-ending when everybody realizes their faults and says "I' sorry". If you are a fan of well done movies that make you think about them and reflex upon the ideas presented... do not see this Christmas.

Chris Brown Makes "This Christmas" SpecialRecent box office receipts have been swept away by a wave of feature films with black star power. In October, Tyler Perry's "Why Did I get Married?" crashed ashore at #1 with $21.4 million on its opening weekend, marking another successful launch for the Tyler Perry brand. Last month, the first crime saga to eclipse the $30 million mark went #1 with a bullet on its opening weekend, with Denzel Washington as Frank Lucas in "American Gangster." Next month the last man on earth will not be in theaters alone when Will Smith's "I Am Legend" opens in theaters, but a surprise holiday gift was delivered early when "This Christmas" arrived this weekend. "This Christmas" is a feel good movie about growth and acceptance. Once the table is set, a satisfying film leaves you rubbing your stomach and picking your teeth with content. Among the ensemble cast of familiar faces, a shining young star makes his presence known. With pretty boy looks, a golden voice and a charismatic smile, Hip hop R&B singer Chris Brown makes "This Christmas" a very special movie for all ages.A dancer since the age of two, Brown was not aware of his vocal abilities until he was 11. He can now add acting to his resume of showbiz talents with an accomplishment that included not one, but two vocal solos and a compelling performance in the role of Baby, the youngest child of the estranged Whitfield family. As they attempt to reconnect over the holidays, dark secrets are revealed as a family in crisis searches to rediscover unity and togetherness. The dramatic comedy boasts an ensemble cast including Delroy Lindo, Idris Elba, Loretta Devine, Columbus Short , Sharon Leal, Mekhi Phifer, and the incomparable Regina King, who plays a memorable role as a submissive housewife to an unfaithful husband (Laz Alonso). However, the powerful actress gets the last laugh in a must-see showdown reminiscent of "Waiting to Exhale," and appears not once, but twice in her underwear! Why don't we see more of Regina King?Brown has made appearances in UPN's. "One on One" and the N's "The Brandon T. Jackson Show." He appeared as a band geek in the fourth season of FOX's "The O.C. early this year and made a very brief film debut in the dance movie "Stomp The Yard." Brown's character was murdered in the opening scene, but not before astounding audiences with inhuman dance moves and a star quality that could not be denied. Chris Brown's acting career was waiting to happen.Producers Rob Hardy and Will Packer know all about punching tickets at the box office. In fact, they've been doing this for more than a decade. They created Rainforest Films and promptly released their feature, "Chocolate City" to critical acclaim in 1994. They followed with their independently funded, produced and distributed breakout feature "Trois," which became the fastest African-American distributed film to ever pass the million dollar mark and put Rainforest at #34 among the top 500 film distributors of 2000 (listed by the Hollywood Reporter in August 2001). "Trois" was one of the top 50 highest grossing independent films of that year (Daily Variety, July 30, 2001). Until "This Christmas," Rainforest's last release was the surprise talk of the charts—Screen Gems/Sony's "Stomp The Yard" kicked off the holiday weekend last season at #1 with an appeal far beyond African-American youth. It stomped the competition with an estimated $26.5 million over the 4-day weekend. Exit polls showed the Stomp audience was 59% female and 41% male, with 62% over 18 and 65% African-American. "This Christmas" should yield similar results, with $27.1 million in total gross receipts, in second place at the box office despite showing in less than half of the theaters of the "The Enchanted," which grossed $50 million at #1."This Christmas" boasts strong performances and refreshing twists to not-so-original subplots. A surprise pregnancy is far from cliché as the family quickly accepts Claude Whitfield's (Columbus Short) pregnant white wife (Jessica Stroup), as the real bolt from the blue is that Claude is also AWOL from military service. Delroy Lindo and Loretta Devine have a screen chemistry you can feel, and Idris Elba delivers a compelling role as an alienated jazz musician and gambler who remains bitter after their birth father's disappearance years ago. The legacy of the Whitfield men is that they never seem to stick around, but Chris Brown's performance will undoubtedly make you do just that.Miles Maker is an independent filmmaker, screenwriter and freelance columnist: [email protected]