This week, Red Bull film critic Chris Sullivan went to see New Year's Eve... and came out wishing this particular auld acquaintance could be forgot.
If you only ever follow my advice on films once, then make sure you avoid New Year’s Eve - the movie, not necessarily the big night itself.
Directed by 78-year-old Garry ‘The Princess Diaries’ Marshall (whose credits also include the awful Mork & Mindy, the terrible Happy Days and the dreadful Valentine’s Day), this reaches new heights of cynical commercial exploitation and schmaltz. It’s as bad a film as I’ve ever seen.
But giving this flick the swerve might not be that easy: Your girlfriend might want to see Sarah Jessica Parker and Halle Berry; your mum might like Jon Bon Jovi and Michelle Pfeiffer, your niece probably likes Zac Efron or Ashton Kutcher and your dad might be taken in by the latest offering from Robert De Niro and James Belushi. Even rappers Ludacris and Common are cashing in on the act!
And that's what this movie is all about. It’s a contemptible attempt to suck as much money out of as many people as possible.
The actors, none of whom are in it for that long, are there to purely pull in punters to a non-stop parade of product placement
I can imagine the producers saying: "Let’s set New Year's Eve in Times Square so we can show huge billboards for TDK, Samsung, Starbucks. Great idea." The cast of multi-nationals is bigger than the cast of actors – even the Nivea logo pops up on a reveller's hat.
Of course, you might notice if the performances weren’t so utterly appalling. The script by Katherine Fugate is so unbelievably trite and the premise so disgustingly saccharine.
Basically, it’s a mélange of interconnected stories – a man and woman stuck in a lift, two couples trying to win a prize for the first-born kid of 2012, a middle-aged woman with a list of New Year resolutions, a jilted rock star, and on and on – all are dazzlingly corny and unoriginal and all climax in Times Square as the clock strikes midnight.
The big question is how did this director (or, more likely, Warner Brothers) persuade all these big actors (they’re household names but certainly, not quality) to appear in such a terrible film?
Based on his work from the last decade, De Niro will do any old shite for money , so they probably threw a load of cash his way for a day’s work. Two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank probably saw his name attached and agreed to play his estranged daughter, and the rest fell into place – most probably encouraged by a big fat fee in time for Christmas. I doubt if anyone even read the script.
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