Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

pointyfilippa The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Kordermamet23 RXmas--which I have heard pronounced as R Christmas--is an intriguing entry in Ferrara's career. I have to admit, I much prefer the hyperslick megaviolent insanity of King of New York and the scuzzy Method Acting delirium of movies like Bad Lieutenant, Dangerous Game, and The Funeral, and the drab experimentalism of New Rose Hotel and The Addiction to this exercise in extreme realism. But I admired and respected the achievement. Drea Dematteo is very powerful, very vulnerable, very real. Her desire to rescue her husband from the clutches of mysterious kidnappers is fascinating to watch. Ice-T, who gets so little respect as an actor and has been condemned these days to Law and Order spinoffs and Leprachaun sequels, is tight, mean, scary, and inspirational. Lillo Brancato gives a very truthful performance as the husband. He doesn't play it as a moronic machofried action hero: he's just a dad, a workaday stiff, trying to provide for his family in the best way he knows how. RXmas is seemingly the beginning of a new cycle of films, presumably dealing with New York City and the business of drug dealing. Somehow, I doubt this new cycle will ever be brought to fruition. RXmas was yet another megaflop/now you see it now you don'ter from Ferrara. Too bad. American cinema could use some more of his scuzz, his hyperslick insanity, his quotidian realism. I have this theory that most people who see his movies think he's European (Italian, possibly French). He is, however, one of the great American filmmakers. Hopefully, more of this cycle will be revealed.

Cristiano-A The movie is a good example of the independent American cinema. And on the same time it's a Christmas tale, a little different from the usual stuff. It's Christmas! A walk on the Central Park, some last minute shopping and a trip to the tree on the Rockfeller Center. A family, like so many others, prepares to celebrate Christmas. It's a Latin family, of immigrants or sons of immigrants, that came to America searching for a better life. But to achieve the American dream only one occupation is offered to them: the drugs traffic. They do the drug deal as any other family business: on a big glass table, the husband cuts and blends the cocaine and fills the small bags. The uncle seals the bags while another relative puts the mark. But another part of the business happens on the streets and there, the gangs rule. When the husband is kidnapped the wife's life stars to spin around. Abel Ferrara is the author of provocative films like Bad Lieutenant or Driller Killer. And in this film he tries to provoke us once more. 'R Xmas is a kind of moral tale, without a final lesson, but suggesting we think about this little story. Yes, because it doesn't happen much in this movie. We are presented to the daily life of a family, his way of life is exposed to us and then, suddenly, everything is threatened by a sudden and brutal happening: the husband is kidnapped. In the end, he is saved, but the situation is by no means defined. The two leading actors do a sound performance. Drea de Matteo and Lillo Brancato are very convincing in their roles of caring parents and on the same time, drug dealers. Ice-T is also good, in a character who is at the same time, menacing and moral. It's a pity that in the end, the moral message (keep the drugs out of the streets)is hardly related to a dirty cop. In conclusion, it's a good movie, but not an excellent one. Ferrara builds a fiction about the presence of evil and the possibility or will of redemption. Another chapter in his saga of catholic dispair. We hope he can take a project which allows him to develop more of his themes or renew his career by a radical change of course. As a Portuguese critic said, he may direct a sequel of Harry Potter, in which Harry could be tormented by images of Christ, who lead him to question himself about the practice of magic and the obedience to the Bible, for example.

joelholio The whole movie seemed to suffer from poor editing - every scene seemed to take forever to unfold and when they did, I felt like I had waited a long time for very little to happen. I guess I missed the whole point of the movie - either that or there wasn't one.

George Parker "R Xmas" peers into the lives of a middle class married-with-kid family of narco-distributors during the Christmas holiday season. There's no story here - just a disjointed collection of events. Ferrara seems to get off on the juxtaposition of the holidays and home life with narcotics peddling in NYC, jumping back and forth between each. The players appear to be improv'ing and adlibing now and then making for an unconvincing watch. Overall a poor effort not worth the time. (D)