★★½ (2½ out of 4)
Instead of Scrooge, “Tinsel Town” (now in limited release) gives us a new kind of embittered grinch to shout “Bah, humbug” at the very idea of holiday cheer. Who could be that awful? Try a washed-up Hollywood action star. The movie doesn’t name names, though I bet you could. Our reasonable facsimile here is Canadian actor Kiefer Sutherland, whose action bonafides are unimpeachable since he starred in the Fox series “24” as agent Jack Bauer for 208 episodes over nine seasons starting in 2014.
Is Sutherland pointing fingers at himself? Nah, he’s just from Canada, the good sport capital of the world. “A Christmas Carol” has been recycled continuously since Charles Dickens wrote it in 1843. “Tinsel Town” is not the best version, but it’s not the worst either. And Sutherland approaches his task with a frisky, self-deprecating sense of fun that’s contagious. I call that a saving grace.
There’s not a twist you can’t see coming, but thanks to Kiefer Sutherland and a cast of up-for-anything actors, “Tinsel Town” goes down easy and leaves a smile on your face for the holidays that might just last all season long.
Sutherland plays Brad Mac (love the name) a washed-up, impossible-to-like egomaniac with three Razzie nominations for the sheer ineptitude of his acting. His TV series, “Killing Time,” is winding down to oblivion, mostly because Brad is such a jerk, hitting on a married costar and refusing to do anything resembling a dangerous stunt.
Brad is basically unemployable until his agent offers up a job on the London stage to reanimate his career as a serious actor. Sounds good, except the ramshackle theater is hours out of town and his role in this silly pantomime, a musical take on “Cinderella,” is a lowly servant named Buttons. How the mighty have fallen.
That’s the clichéd premise laid at the feet of director Chris Foggin and a quartet of screenwriters. They can’t do much, but Sutherland and a mostly Brit cast of top-drawer actors give it a go. Rebel Wilson pulls laughs (and tears) out of thin air as Jill, the show’s bullied (by Danny Dyer as her rat husband) choreographer, with a daughter played by Theodora Williams, whose real life father is rock star Robbie Williams. Jill and Brad are meant to rescue each other, and Sutherland and Wilson are so damn good, you root for them.
Then there’s Maria Friedman—the Tony-winning director of “Merrily We Roll Along”—who plays the hellcat actress portraying the Fairy Godmother and, miracle of miracles, theater legend Derek Jacobi shows up to make something special out of the nothing role of the stage manager.
There’s not a twist you can’t see coming, though Brad’s drunk and disorderly behavior at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony, the one that gets him arrested, is clearly a setup for the inevitable conversion that makes him—wait for it—someone who cares about other people. That includes his young daughter (Matilda Firth), now living with her remarried mother (Alice Eve) in London.
Thanks to a wonderful Sutherland, swinging from obnoxious to endearing and all the steps in between, and an overqualified cast of up-for-anything actors, “Tinsel Town” goes down easy and leaves a smile on your face for the holidays that might just last all season long.