The Ref (1994)

Starring: Denis Leary, Kevin Spacey, Judy Davis, J.K. Simmons, and B.D. Wong
Grade: B+

This was a lot better than I thought it was going to be.

In terms of obscure and forgotten Christmas movies, The Ref is one of the better ones. It needs to be shown more in circulation around Christmas time. I’m positive a new generation would appreciate this amount of cynical humor around the holiday season if they were reminded of this film’s existence.

Summary

It’s Christmas Eve in Connecticut, but that doesn’t really matter for the combustible and hateful marriage of Lloyd (Spacey) and Caroline (Davis) Chasseur. Despite the holiday season, we see the two in a meeting with their marriage counselor (Wong) to hopefully help save what little of a relationship they have left. Unfortunately, the meeting doesn’t go anywhere. We just see front and center how argumentative the two are. We also see how stern and generally unpleasant Lloyd is. Topics that come up are the subpar sex between the two of them, and the fact that Caroline has had an affair. At the same time, criminal Gus (Leary) breaks into some mansion in town while his partner Murray (Richard Bright) waits outside in the getaway car. Back at the counselor’s office, Lloyd talks about how he runs a successful business, but Caroline says Lloyd’s mother Rose (Glynis Johns) owns it. Rose also owns the house the two live in and charges them 18% interest on it. Furthermore, their son Jesse (Robert J. Steinmiller Jr.) is a bit of a delinquent, but this is mostly because of all the restrictions Lloyd puts on him. Caroline’s problems are mostly about her decision-making skills and following up on the interests she pursues before giving up. As they argue further, we jump back to the house Gus is robbing. The alarm goes off and because of the owner of the house having this elaborate alarm system, Gus is sent through a trap door and into a basement with a Rothweiler. Gus is able to escape, but he’s badly bitten. Unfortunately, Murray leaves him there as the cops show up.

On the ride to the convenience store, Caroline says they should get a divorce, but Lloyd refuses for whatever reason. Caroline goes in the store to grab some things, but Gus shows up, puts a gun to her back, and forces her to get back into the car with Lloyd, forcing Lloyd to drive as well. At the police department, Lt. Huff (Raymond J. Barry) is given shit by a group of wealthy citizens of the small town, presumably of the house that was robbed. One guy threatens to call the mayor to get Lt. Huff fired, but he doesn’t seem to give a fuck at all. As Lloyd, Caroline, and Gus drive, they hear on the radio that the state police have been setting up roadblocks everywhere, forcing Gus to stay in the area for the time being. So, he forces the couple to take him back to their house. On the way there, Lloyd and Caroline argue nonstop over the most trivial of things, annoying the hell out of Gus. At the crime scene at the mansion, Huff and his group of cops search the house and find evidence (blonde hair, face mask, etc.), but the county prosecutor calls. Though they have surveillance tape of the crime, he says he’s bringing in the state police and forbids Huff and the local police from getting involved, even though they’re already there.

Lloyd and Caroline’s son Jesse is currently at military school, but he hasn’t lost his delinquent ways. He’s coming home for the holidays tonight but before he leaves, he gets money from his commanding officer Siskel (Simmons) because he’s been blackmailing the guy by having pictures in his possession that see Siskel in some odd, sexual situations. This doesn’t bode well for his wife and kids, so he’s sort of stuck giving the kid money every so often. After getting his most recent payment, Jesse checks out and heads back home, paying for a limo driver to take him.

Gus, Lloyd, and Caroline get home and after getting acclimated, and Gus setting the rules straight with his gun, he ties them up with bungee cords. The problem is that they’re hosting a dinner party tonight, with Lloyd’s overbearing mother Rose (that hates Caroline and vice versa) and Lloyd’s brother’s family. On the way to Lloyd and Caroline’s, we see Lloyd’s family go out to a restaurant in anticipation of Caroline’s horrible cooking and another dreadful party because they go there every year for Christmas Eve and know what to expect. As Lloyd and Caroline argue some more, Gus calls a local dive bar to hopefully find his accomplice Murray, and he does. After scolding him for leaving, he gives him a new task of stealing and hotwiring a boat, something he has no experience in doing. He has until tonight to do so. He gives Murray the house phone number to call him back. Later, their neighbor George (Bill Raymond) comes by, dressed like Santa, and delivers to the house a fruitcake his wife made. Since the lights are on and the car is in the driveway, Caroline has to answer the door, so she does with Gus hiding behind it with his gun. George gives her the cake and also mentions there’s a $100,000 reward for the criminal that robbed the house from earlier. As he leaves, he implies Jesse stole the baby Jesus statue from the Nativity scene and how they’re still looking for it. Jesse, who has just pulled up in the limo, decides he’s not ready to go inside just yet (because of his crazy parents) and pays his driver an extra $50 to drive around the block.

Following Caroline giving Gus band aides to take care of the dog bite, and she brings up how they used to run a restaurant business that failed, Gus ties up her and Lloyd in the bedroom. Jesse finally comes in too, but he’s immediately tied up as well. At the police department, Huff shows them the security footage of Gus robbing the mansion and tries to set up a plan to find him. However, when he gets a phone call from the prosecutor again, the other cops manage to accidentally record It’s a Wonderful Life over the security tape once he takes the call. This will buy Gus some time. Even so, the clock is ticking. The family is on their way to the house, and Murray is still in search of a boat. With the cops starting their search and even going door-to-door to find him, along with the constant tantrums between Lloyd and Caroline, this escape is going to be hard to pull off.

My Thoughts:

The Ref could have very easily been forgettable, but due to some well-written dialogue and great performances by our three leads, we get a pretty entertaining black comedy that takes an interesting approach on the troubles of a broken marriage.

Denis Leary is really funny here. He’s great as he evolves from a hard-nosed criminal to a pseudo-marriage counselor for the crazy married couple of Lloyd and Caroline, giving them both much-needed shit as they all argue. He becomes the normal voice of reason, despite being the one pointing a gun in their faces. Regardless, Gus is the aggressive mediator this marriage needs. Honestly, it’s why they haven’t gone anywhere with their actual counselor. Gus is straightforward and is as blunt as he needs to be, pulling no punches. It’s very funny to see him interject into their arguments just as they get good, either to take someone’s side or to put perspective into the conversation by criticizing the both of them. Leary is able to retain his “done with everyone’s shit” persona, and he really amps it up when needed to establish the terror of the situation early on. However, seeing him lose control of the situation is downright funny.

When he takes Caroline hostage and they get into the car with Lloyd and the arguing begins, Gus hits us with a great line that sets up the rest of the movie perfectly: “Great, I hijacked my fucking parents”.

Considering the tone of the movie and how we see the way Gus carries himself, along with his general personality, we know he’s not going to murder someone in cold blood, but the threat of a gun should throw anyone off their game. Despite this, Lloyd and Caroline argue so much that the gun is an afterthought after a while, but it doesn’t even bother you. You just become locked into the intricate details of their marriage, and you find yourself taking sides and joining the argument in your head, much like how Gus does so onscreen since he’s playing the role of the observer that the audience is. Now, at first, I thought the arguing and yelling between Lloyd and Caroline would be so exhausting to the point where I would check out of the movie, much like how awful Kevin Spacey was in Swimming with Sharks. In that movie, he was so terrible you wanted to see him die but, in The Ref, he does things a bit differently. He plays the role in the same vein but tones it down slightly. This way, he’s not a villain but a highly disgruntled husband.

This was the sweet spot.

Because of this, it allows you to find the fun in the dialogue and you start to listen to their points. It not only gives us great insight into their marriage, but there are a lot of consistently amusing retorts between the two. This wasn’t all Kevin Spacey either. Judy Davis was fantastic. She doesn’t play the wife role as some hysteric shrew that annoys the viewer to death. It could’ve very easily been that, but Davis manages to give us a fully layered, sympathetic performance, despite all of the constant yelling. When you put this into perspective, it’s a hard role to make likable, but she manages to do it. What’s even more impressive is that she manages the impossible in playing Kevin Spacey’s equal. Think about the difficulty of going head-to-head with someone who has made a career out of playing dickheads. You need to have some serious talent to pull this off, but Judy Davis doesn’t back down for a second onscreen. They always have an answer for each other. He’ll come at her with something demeaning, and she’ll hit him right back with something just as ferocious in an instant.

The only way they can be stopped is if a third-party steps in, like Gus for instance. Otherwise, this would basically be a 24-hour version of a high school lunch table where two kids roast each other.

Caroline is open with everyone and really wants to understand her husband but can’t seem to get him to communicate without insults being thrown out, especially on his side. She seems like the nicer person in the marriage, and it makes you wonder why Lloyd is such an asshole, even with the infidelity on her part. However, as the movie goes on, we learn more about her character flaws. She doesn’t like to take responsibility, doesn’t follow through on things, and plays the role of victim way too often. I could see why this would get on Lloyd’s nerves. All of this leads to the dinner party scene, easily the best sequence of the movie. Not only is it extremely funny, but it’s well-thought-out, written to perfection, and performed excellently from everyone involved. It becomes so good that the early highlight of the film, Denis Leary’s Gus, takes a backseat and watches in the corner because he doesn’t have a dog in the fight. With this, Lloyd and Caroline UNLOAD on each other and Lloyd’s family. As chaotic as it sounds, it’s beautiful to watch. They finally get deep into each other’s personal lives, rather than just insult each other to where we would laugh, and we start to react just how Gus is. We stand in the corner and watch, with nothing to say. As much as we want to get back to the action, we’ve become so invested in their marriage up until this point that we want to see how this argument plays out. When Gus only interjects to light Caroline’s cigarette, I actually laughed out loud. It was perfect, and he didn’t even have to say anything.

Then, when they announce they are getting a divorce, Lloyd’s brother exclaims “Why?”, as if it isn’t the most ridiculous thing to ask at this point in time. In context though, it’s so stupid, it’s funny.

Despite Gus being the spear head behind the entertainment of the movie and the fact that he is the reason the family is in danger, you forget Gus is a villain because not only is he a likable guy, but he needs to be there to metaphorically kick this couple’s asses. They needed this situation, so they can fix their own situation. I thought this would’ve been Leary’s movie through and through, but he’s just there to set things into motion because as we learn more about Lloyd and Caroline and they become more and more important as the movie goes on, they become just as vital to the movie’s success, if not more. When Gus settles into his backseat role as the unwitting “Ref” of this marriage during this fateful Christmas Eve, that’s when the movie starts to really kick into high gear, and it only gets better. It just takes a little bit to get there.

The subplots that follow George around and Lt. Huff almost have nothing to do with the main story, other than the fact they are vaguely connected to either Gus, or Lloyd and Caroline. Lt. Huff never meets any of the main characters, and George only has two scenes with them. So, despite there being some pretty funny material involving both supporting characters, it was kind of pointless in the grand scheme of things. It was still entertaining though, so I can’t mark off too many points for that. When Lt. Huff straight up told the guy that is trying to get him fired that he legitimately fucked his wife, it was so unexpected because of his deadpan delivery, I busted out laughing. With the straightest face he’s like, “I nailed your wife Bob”. It was great. Did it have anything to do with our three leads? No, but it was still great. The rest of the supporting characters that were Lloyd’s family were very good and seeing the right characters get their due from either Gus having enough, or Lloyd or Caroline, was so satisfying, especially Rose who Gus hilariously agreed with Caroline that she’s a total bitch.

It’s rude, cynical, vulgar, and very funny. It’s a perfect Denis Leary vehicle. When you add in two great performances by Kevin Spacey and Judy Davis that continuously one-up the other in either arguments or intensity, you get a very underrated comedy. The Ref isn’t your typical Christmas movie and as long as you can handle some rougher dialogue, you’ll have a lot of fun.

Being on the verge of a horrible divorce can be very hard to make funny, but The Ref does its best to impress.