Last Holiday Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)January 11th, 2006
LAST HOLIDAY
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2006 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): * 1/2
In ancient times, people told the time by the height of the sun in the sky. For modern moviegoers, a similar calculation can be derived by the sudden appearance of a rash of bad movies opening at their local multiplexes. This occurrence almost certainly means that January has arrived. Although there are exceptions to this rule, last January's ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 being one, LAST HOLIDAY is certainly no rule breaker. It is a completely predictable comedy with very few laughs. The level of humor can be accurately calculated when one finds out that the pronunciation of the name of the hotel where the story is set -- Grandhotel Pupp, pronounced "poop" -- is one the film's best jokes. And, if you find that funny, maybe you would like this movie, which only served to kill time for me.
As the story starts, we meet a poor working class woman named Georgia Byrd (Queen Latifah). Only in Hollywood would they go out of the way to show just how poor she was by having her use grocery coupons. Newsflash screenwriters, this is a pretty common phenomenon in America, used by people in most of the country, even if it might be eschewed in Tinseltown.
Georgia is a hard working sales associate who is as successful as she is unappreciated. One day, after accidentally hitting her head at work, she is given an MRI by the company doctor. Although he says that the MRI was purchased used in order to save money, no one questions the validity of the big spots that appear on Georgia's X-ray. She is quickly diagnosed with the extremely rare Lampington's Disease and given three weeks to live if she doesn't have an operation. When the clerk at the insurance company denies the $350,000 operation to save Georgia's life, Georgia doesn't try to speak to a supervisor or a lawyer. Instead she just grumbles about how insurance companies are killing her and then withdraws all of her life savings.
In no time, Georgia is spending more than $5,000 a day at a hotel in the Czech Republic and eating the food of a famous chef, Chef Didier, played by a slumming Gérard Depardieu. Renting a helicopter rather than riding in a taxi and ordering every special on the menu at dinner has everyone in the hotel assuming that she is incredibly rich, so they want to get to know her.
While at the hotel, Queen Latifah hams it up as best she can. One of the many slapstick gags has her waddling across the polished marble of the spa floor. She has been wrapped up in a towel, you see, for one of her many spa treatments which include loud bells and hot rocks, but she has to go to the bathroom.
Timothy Hutton turns in another of his embarrassingly bad performances. This time he plays Matthew Kragen, a heartless department store magnet, who is the CEO of the company whose insurance plan refused to save Georgia's life. He, too, is staying at the hotel, as he is trying to buy the influence of the senator from Georgia's home state of Louisiana.
Is there anything enjoyable in this film, which vacillates between laughless humor and cheap social commentary? Yes, the snow scenes, although far from memorable, aren't bad.
LAST HOLIDAY runs a long 1:52. It is rated PG-13 for "some sexual reference" and would be acceptable for kids around 9 and up.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, January 13, 2006. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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