Published: 8 December, 2011
by DAN CARRIER

Directed by Gary Marshall
Certificate 12a

Rating: 1 Out Of 5 Stars

It is New Year’s Eve in New York. People are gearing up to see out 2011 and hustle in 2012.

This film focuses on a group of disparate and unconnected people and follows them as they watch the hours, minutes and seconds tick down on one calendar date and move on to another.

This is Richard Curtis’s study in vile smarminess Love, Actually, put through an American translation, dosed in that type of cringing schmaltz Hollywood loves to peddle.

We have the two couples who are due to give birth but are now in a race to be the first person to have a child in the new year – to win themselves $25,000.

The woman in charge of making a giant lit-up ball in Times Square move down a flagpole has to overcome a mechanical hitch.

A man has to get into the city after being at a friend’s wedding to give a speech at his firm’s party – and try and catch up with a woman he met 365 days ago.

There is the rock star Jensen (played by Jon Bon Jovi) who is giving a gig at a record company bash, that just happens to have the catering done by his incredibly annoying former girlfriend...

The mum (Sarah Jessica Parker) whose 15-year-old daughter has decided she wants to go to a party and not stay in, leading to friction.

The cancer patient (Robert De Niro), who knows this is his last eve and wants to sit on the roof of the hospital to watch the year come in.

The neighbours who are stuck in a lift together.

This has a cast of A-listers who would hold a film on their own, but thrown together in this exhaustingly poor hotch-potch of goo, none sparkle.

A sign of how bad this is: in the screening I was at, critics guffawed when de Niro, whose character is lying in a hospital bed as a terminal illness takes his life, says his opening lines.

It speaks volumes that people were able to laugh with embarrassment is such a scene.

Cringy soliloquys and voice-overs, laden with slushy nonsense about how New Year’s Eve gives us all a chance to take stock, think about what is important, think about love and friendship, make amends for previous misdemeanours and make some vows regarding the future, riddle this film.

What a load of baloney!

It is as appetising as Chrimbo leftovers on the second of January.