Bill Firpo (Nicolas Cage) tries to keep honest. However his brothers Dave (Jon Lovitz) and kleptomaniac Alvin (Dana Carvey) get early parole due to overcrowding. Bill is pulled back in as they go to Paradise, Pennsylvania to find Sarah based on another inmate's story. They find the small local bank so lax in security that they have to rob it. They have to get the keys to the vault from bank president Clifford Anderson (Donald Moffat). On the way out, they crash their getaway car. They are rescued and brought to the Andersons and their upstairs renter bank worker Sarah Collins (Mädchen Amick). None of them recognize that the brothers are the robbers. The criminal who had the original idea to rob the bank finds out. The FBI led by agent Shaddus Peyser (Richard Jenkins) are also looking for them. They keep failing to get away while the people in town are all so very nice.Dana Carvey has that annoying voice and face. He is stupid in a hateful way. Jon Lovitz is slightly better by comparison. Nicolas Cage is angry and with good reasons. The three brother are so annoying that there are unlikeable. They are unfunny. And the jokes fall flat. The big chase isn't anything fun. It is generally boring and most of the blame has to be laid at writer/director George Gallo's feet.

I'm really not sure why people don't find this movie universally hilarious but perhaps i'm just a sucker for a bunch of losers finally coming around to doing the right thing kind of movie. With Nicolas Cage portraying 'the smart and good brother' doing everything he can to keep himself on the straight and narrow and also taking on the older brother mantle of trying to keep his younger brothers recently paroled for overcrowding and released to Cage's custody, the gleefully ne'er-do-well brothers portrayed by Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey, it is Cage's duty to keep these two on the straight and narrow as well. With Carvey's brother a helpless kleptomaniac and Lovitz' brother a semi-smooth talking schmuck who can always talk himself (and occasionally others) into anything ... and so they eventually, with the help of their 'sainted' mother (perfectly portrayed by Florence Stanley), talk Cage into breaking their parole, leaving the state to visit another con's estranged daughter. The purpose of the trip is really to rob a small town bank which, on a particular day, holds a Fort Knox like sum of cash.And so the story is set and while many people might guess the general path the film takes, it is a joyful and hilarious ride through their travails and eventual redemption in a town called Paradise. A tight and smooth-running script keeps the film humming along at a fine pace and ranks among my top ten xmas films ... though of course that might not include the standard films most would include ... i'm also a big fan of 'silent night, deadly night' ... so take it for what it's worth ... but this is still a very funny movie despite many of the negative reviews and the sub 6 star rating.

Well, I thought that the reviewers trashed this movie more than it really deserves. It wasn't the best of movies, but I did find that parts of it were funny. This movie is about two brothers who trick the third to go to a small town and rob a bank that is really easy to rob. Unfortunately they cannot get out of the town and end up giving all of the money back because they see the hearts behind the people.As I said, the movie isn't that great, but I do think that some people really watch too many movies and be a bit too critical about them. If one just relaxes, one can see the stupidity of this film. The whole comic concept is not watching police cars get smashed up, but rather watching a criminal walk across the road with the bank manager's wife, and then bring the entire café back because they can't leave them sitting there. It is just the unbelievable niceness and trust of the town. Unfortunately, later in the film it does start to lag in regards to the laughs, but I still think Dana Carvey's character is pretty cool - and more realistic as a kleptomaniac - so much as there is no order in what he steals, he simply steals because he can. The one character that did irritate me was Lovitt's.

This the only Christmas movie that i watch constantly year after year.I don't know why the low grade.My guess is that people are not using the film properly,and by "properly" i mean: It's a frickin' Christmas flick,don't watch it in July,or after a hard days work in September or in the spring vacation.I mean,what else do you need?it's got great comedy,romance,family closeness and lots of snow,all set in a very easy going small town with uncomplicated inhabitants...the kind of small town in witch we all dream to live.Jon Lovitz,Dana Carvey and Cage are all playing their natural characters without overacting crap or trying to outshine one another.In my opinion this is a slam-dunk Christmas classic and it's to bad for whoever doesn't put it on it's Holidays playlist.