When the Italian prime minister meets his lover and political rival while on an official trip to Budapest during Christmas week, things go topsy turvy.
For one final Christmas review, I wanted to see how the foreign-language Christmas films stack up. Came across 5 Star Christmas (otherwise known as Natale A Cinque Stelle) in the Netflix catalogue; an Italian comedy film that was released last year.
Foreign-language dramas are usually quite engaging as they don't necessarily follow the typical Hollywood clichés, but this "raunchy" comedy feels like a misstep. With political characters, the film gives the impression that it will include social commentary and political themes, but it is simply window dressing. Much in the same way that they put Christmas in the title, but apart from referencing the events taking place during Christmas week, a couple of dollars of Christmas decorations around a door, and one character wearing a Santa suit, there is nothing about the film that screams Christmas movie. It seems more interested in trying to fit into as many genres as possible to try draw in audiences.
The content in the script is considerably lacking. It comes across like a Laurel and Hardy double door skit that has been expanded with enough filler to last 100 minutes; an over-the-top performance fit for a Blackadder show, with dated jokes and references. Due to the simple nature of the comedic elements, there is a lot of repetition and it leads to diminishing returns as the film progresses. You may chuckle and giggle, to begin with, but it does not take long for those sounds of mirth to make way for groans of frustration as the film continually treads along the same path again and again.
Overfilled with old tropes and behaviours that don't fit in anymore, all of the women are blonde sex objects that have little role in the film beyond spending much of their time scantily clad in lingerie and negligees. The men, on the other hand, are all sleazy, manipulative, exploitative, and pathological liars willing to do anything to save face. The closest thing we get to a sympathetic character is Rick Memphis' Walter Bianchini, who finds himself trapped between a rock and a hard place, but even his moral compass is skewed by the end of the film.
With a cycle of repeating sequences, that gets old after 15 minutes, and a lack of supplementary story arcs to keep things interesting 5 Star Christmas is a 1-star comedy. The production is fine, but the script is unimaginative, full of tropes, and has a comedic style that would appeal to a child, but involves adult material. A poorly thought out film.